THE 

NEW    TENDE 
IN  ART 

HENRY  R.  POORE 


N  VERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


3  1822016050577 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


Central  University  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 

M\p  i  8  1994 

MAD    1    C    100A 

n/Vf      o  \yy\ 

Cl  39  (7/93)                                                                 UCSDLiJ. 

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3    ///- 


OUT  OFPWNI 


UN  VERS  TY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  D  EGO 


3  1822016050577 


THE  NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 


THE  NEW  TENDENCY 
IN  ART 

POST  IMPRESSIONISM,  CUBISM, 
FUTURISM 


By 
HENRY  R.  POORE,  A.  N.  A. 

Author  of  "Pictorial  Composition  and 
the  Critical  Judgment  of  Pictures" 


Illustrated 


GARDEN  CITY        NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,     PAGE     &     COMPANY 

4.11  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 
translation  into  foreign  languages. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ix 

CHAPTER 

I     Later  Tendencies — Post  Impression- 
ism— Matise  and  Picasso  ...       3 

II     Futurism — The  Final  Development     44 
III     Conclusion  .  55 


[v] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

RETROSPECTION Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 
RETROSPECTION 10 

POST   IMPRESSIONISM    CONCERNED    WITH    RHYTHMIC    LINE, 

DESIGN    AND    PRIMITIVE     EXPRESSION 20 

POST     IMPRESSIONISM,   PRIMITIVISM     AND     ELEMENTALISM  28 

POST   IMPRESSIONISTIC  SCULPTURE 36 

VARIED     EXAMPLES     OF    POST     IMPRESSIONISM      ....  40 

CUBISM 52 

FUTURISM 56 


[vii] 


INTRODUCTION 

AIT'S  complaisancy  has  been  shocked.  The 
immunity  which  has  been  continued  to  her 
through  thirty  odd  centuries  is  at  length  re- 
called. She  finds  herself  now  brought  face  to 
face  with  a  challenge  which  she  must  either 
ignore  or  accept. 

The  world  has  lived  through  the  like  ex- 
perience in  its  other  great  activities.  In 
medicine  Hahnemann  inaugurated  no  less  of  a 
revolution,  when,  instead  of  opposing  the  prin- 
ciple in  disease,  he  treated  it  in  kind,  nor  was 
Luther's  revolt  any  less  appalling  when  he 
substituted  faith  in  place  of  works.  Music 
has  arrived  with  less  of  a  shock  at  Debussy 
because  of  Wagner,  but  the  step  from  Mendels- 
sohn to  him  is  no  greater  than  from  Raphael  to 
Gauguin.  In  jurisprudence  the  wig  and  gown 
has  received  its  fillip  in  the  Recall  of  Judicial 
Decisions.  In  time  each  of  these,  comfortably 
established  by  Tradition,  has  been  asked  to 
rouse  itself,  get  up,  and  turn  around.  It  has 
never  hurt  any  of  these  to  be  viewed  from  the 
other  side. 

In  the  New  Movement  in  art  we  can  detect 
the  same  protesting  spirit  in  which  Luther 
nailed  his  theses  upon  the  Church  door  of 
Wittenberg  when  he  tried  to  raise  formalism 
to  the  higher  power  of  faith. 

Here  likewise  is  a  protest  that  demands  the 
eye  of  faith,  with  its  ability  to  see  the  spirit. 

ix 


THE  NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 


CHAPTER  I 

LATER  TENDENCIES  —  POST  IMPRESSIONISM  — 
MATISSE   AND    PICASSO 

"Evolution  is  not  only  a  movement  forward;  in  many 
cases  we  observe  a  marking  time  and  still  more  often  a  devi- 
ation or  turning  back. "  —  Henri  Bergsen. 

THE  later  movement  in  art  is  coincident  with 
the  new  philosophy,  a  philosophy  of  primitive- 
ology  and  intuitive  creation.  Though  the 
philosophy  of  Bergsen1  is  an  elaborate  advocacy 
for  intuitiveness  and  stimulates  a  confidence  in 
and  an  approval  of  its  use,  it  by  no  means  dis- 
counts the  logical  process  which  it  distinctly 
asserts  the  intuitions  epitomize.  The  intui- 
tions are  right  only  through  a  right  organization 
by  which  they  are  produced  and  therefore  a 
product  from  them  can  only  be  good  in  such 
degree  as  the  source  is  good.  Like  will  produce 
like  in  every  philosophy,  and  this  universal 
law  is  proved  by  the  empty  echoes  with  which 
the  halls  of  "Art"  are  now  resounding. 

"We  must,"  he  declares,  "break  with  scien- 
tific habits  which  are  adapted  to  the  funda- 
mental requirements  of  thought.  We  must  do 
violence  to  the  mind,  go  counter  to  the  natural 
bent  of  the  intellect,  but  that  is  just  the  function 
of  philosophy. 

('Henri  Bergsen's  "Creative  Evolution.") 
[3] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

"Evolution  does  not  mark  out  a  specific 
route;  it  takes  directions  rather  than  aiming 
at  ends  and  remains  inventive  even  in  its 
adaptations. " 

It  is  this  latest  trend  in  thought  which  more 
than  anything  else  has  produced  the  point  of 
view  for  the  school  of  Matisse  and  Picasso;  for 
literature  now  is  forcing  art's  helm  as  it  always 
has,  from  the  time  of  Plato,  who  preceded 
Phidias,  and  of  Dante,  who  preceded  Angelo, 
and  J.  J.  Rousseau,  who  preceded  Manet,  and 
Guy  de  Maupassant,  who  helped  to  close  the 
epoch  of  genre. 

The  revolution  of  the  Post  Impressionists 
originates  as  a  protest  to  the  idea  that  imitation 
is  the  business  of  art;  that  technique  is  the  goal 
where  the  effort  of  the  artist  must  finally  stop, 
that  the  result  must  be  beautiful,  that  art's 
pleasure  is  sensuous  rather  than  intellectual. 

The  movement  is  logical.  After  Bouguereau 
the  deluge!  To  surpass  the  perfection  of  the 
school  of  Cabanel,  Lefebvre,  Meissonier,  and 
Alma  Tadema  was  technically  impossible. 

The  fact  is  there  was  a  great  deal  of  Bou- 
guereau in  art's  last  generation,  and  when  the 
days  of  a  sweetened  and  perfected  beauty  were 
waning  and  the  naturalism  of  Bastien  Lepage 
and  the  imperious  gesture  of  Impressionism  led 
us  out  of  doors,  there  was  too  much  young  lady 
with  the  parasol.  She  has  been  too  willing. 
She  has  sat  beneath  her  parasol  for  a  full  quar- 
ter century,  allowing  the  light  to  fall  on  her  at 
all  angles  and  every  degree  of  intensity  in  order 
that  the  painter  might  study  mere  aspect.  Dur- 

[4] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

ing  this  last  period  painters  have  learned  and 
expressed  more  about  sunlight  than  the  world 
has  ever  known  before;  but  it  is  almost  time  to 
let  the  young  lady  off. 

Art  has  capacities  that  these  technical  en- 
thusiasts are  neglecting.  Their  neglect  has 
been  rudely  pointed  out  by  the  seers  and 
prophets  of  our  modern  day.  They  deride  the 
notion  that  any  man  should  enslave  his  per- 
ceptions and  craftsmanship  with  the  imitation 
of  surfaces;  and  instead  they  place  man's 
rational  pleasure  hi  art  on  a  higher  level.  They 
perceive  the  striving  of  the  student,  intent  on 
making  his  copy  "look  like,"  and  with  a  stroke 
across  his  back  straighten  him  to  face  the 
inquiry.  Don't  you  know  the  difference  be- 
tween the  real,  and  the  sensation  of  the  real! 
You  are  circumscribing  your  subject  by  what 
you  know  about  it.  Give  the  imagination  scope 
without  frontier,  where  it  may  range  unre- 
stricted in  vaster  areas.  Whereas  you  have 
been  tying  weights  to  your  ideas,  free  them; 
whereas  you  have  been  looking  straight  at  na- 
ture, look  below  and  beneath  her,  look  above 
and  around  her.  There  are  things  you  will  find 
in  these  ranges  that  will  surprise  you! 

This  movement  is  directing  attention  to 
universal  ideas  in  a  broadened  and  lengthened 
perspective,  tapping  the  sources  of  subconscious 
emotion,  and  denying  such  value  for  the 
obvious  as  was  placed  upon  it  by  a  former  time. 
In  this  scheme  of  art  the  aesthetic  sense,  de- 
frauded of  sustenance  in  the  object,  is  asked  to 
find  it  in  the  stimulation  of  the  imagination,  em- 

[5] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

phaslzed  through  the  rhythmic  and  decorative 
enlivenment  of  the  design.  The  art  of  Matisse 
and  his  school  is  a  smart  challenge  to  the  exist- 
ing order.  Its  tilt  is  not  altogether  at  the  beauty 
with  which  art  has  been  busy,  but  with  the 
academic  notion  that  truth  of  "aspect"  is  of 
such  vital  importance. 

In  all  fairness  should  we  not  be  willing  to 
pause  and  inquire  whether,  after  all,  the  shock 
received  from  these  expressions  of  ideas  sud- 
denly stripped  of  the  conventional  clothing, 
which  a  fashion  of  long  tenure  has  prescribed, 
is  not  in  part  due  to  our  equally  conventional 
expectancy  to  find  the  fashion  unchanged? 

The  frankness  of  the  creed  is  enough  to  give 
it  shelter,  and  with  any  open  mind  it  should  not 
be  cast  out  because  it  looks  like  a  serpent,  but 
rather  granted  hearth  room,  with  an  oppor- 
tunity to  watch  it.  It  may  prove  fangless  and 
it  may  prove  wise. 

With  Cezanne,  Gauguin,  and  Van  Gogh 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  sincerity.  Cezanne 
was  a  recluse  who  wanted  to  be  let  alone,  con- 
tent to  probe  into  the  essence  of  natural  aspect 
and  render  its  elemental  qualities.  The  direct- 
ness of  his  painting  would  appeal  to  any  one, 
in  whatever  station  of  life  or  ignorance  of  art, 
as  a  great  simple  honesty.  It  was  not  subtle, 
it  was  not  finished,  it  was  merely  the  reflex  of 
a  genuine  mind. 

Nor  can  we  give  a  less  sympathetic  hearing 
to  the  cry  of  Van  Gogh,  that  anything  toward 
which  he  was  drawn  provoked  a  "holy  ecstasy'* 
in  him,  nor  deny  belief  in  his  assertion  that  the 

[6] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

more  ill  (crazy)  he  was  the  better  he  painted. 
The  mere  feverish,  cataclysmic  technique  of  his 
work  bears  evidence  sufficient  of  genuineness. 

Gauguin,  the  man,  was  sui  generis,  a  per- 
fectly simple  and  natural  anarchist  who  brushed 
aside  convention  in  his  search  for  fundamental 
things.  So  important  to  his  art  did  he  esteem 
the  unfettered  mind  that  he  declared  himself 
in  revolt  against  all  influences:  "Everything 
I  have  learned  from  others  has  been  a  hindrance 
to  me." 

From  these  to  Matisse  is  a  long  step. 

Matisse  announces  that,  "Expression  lies 
not  in  the  passion  which  breaks  upon  the  face, 
or  which  shows  itself  in  violent  movement,  but 
in  the  whole  disposition  of  the  picture. 

"I  condense  the  significance  of  the  body  by 
looking  for  the  essential  lines. 

"That  for  which  I  dream  is  an  art  of  equi- 
librium, of  purity,  of  tranquillity,  with  no  sub- 
ject to  disquiet  or  preoccupy;  such  as  will  be  for 
every  brain  worker  a  sedative,  something  anala- 
gous  to  an  armchair." 

On  the  basis  of  these  pronouncements  he  has 
won  friends  among  the  critics.  Selecting  from 
a  number  I  present  the  opinions  of  four  advo- 
cates of  the  new  movement: 

"We  all  agree  that  any  form  in  which  an  artist 
can  express  himself  is  legitimate,  and  the  more 
sensitive  perceive  that  there  are  things  worth 
expressing  that  could  never  have  been  expressed 
in  traditional  forms.  We  have  ceased  to  ask, 
'What  does  this  picture  represent?'  and  ask 

[7] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

instead,  'What  does  it  make  us  feel?'  We 
expect  a  work  of  plastic  art  to  have  more  in 
common  with  a  piece  of  music  than  with  a 
colored  photograph. 

"That  such  a  revolutionary  movement  was 
needed  is  proved,  I  think,  by  the  fact  that  every 
one  of  them  has  something  to  say  which  could 
not  have  been  said  in  any  other  form.  New 
wine  abounded  and  the  old  bottles  were  found 
wanting.  These  artists  are  of  the  movement 
because,  in  choice  of  subject,  they  recognize  no 
authority  but  the  truth  that  is  in  them;  in 
choice  of  form,  none  but  the  need  of  expressing 
it.  That  is  Post  Impressionism. 

"How,  then,  does  the  Post  Impressionist 
regard  an  object?  He  regards  it  as  an  end  in 
itself,  as  a  significant  form  related  on  terms  of 
equality  with  other  significant  forms.  Thus 
have  all  great  artists  regarded  objects.  Forms 
and  the  relation  of  forms  have  been,  for  them, 
not  means  of  suggesting  emotion  but  objects 
of  emotion.  It  is  this  emotion  they  have  ex- 
pressed. They  are  intended  neither  to  please, 
to  flatter,  nor  to  shock,  but  to  express  great 
emotions  and  to  provoke  them." 

CLIVE  BELL. 

"  With  these,  ostentation  of  skill  is  likely  to 
be  even  more  fatal  than  downright  incapacity. 

"  Now,  these  artists  do  not  seek  to  give  what 
can,  after  all,  be  but  a  pale  reflex  of  actual 
appearance,  but  to  arouse  the  conviction  of  a 
new  and  definite  reality.  They  do  not  seek  to 
imitate  form,  but  to  create  form;  not  to  imitate 

[8] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

life,  but  to  find  an  equivalent  for  life.  By  that 
I  mean  that  they  wish  to  make  images  which  by 
the  clearness  of  their  logical  structure,  and  by 
their  closely  knit  unity  of  texture,  shall  appeal 
to  our  disinterested  and  contemplative  imagina- 
tion with  something  of  the  same  vividness  as 
the  things  of  actual  life  appeal  to  our  practical 
activities.  In  fact,  they  aim  not  at  illusion  but 
at  reality. 

"The  logical  extreme  of  such  a  method  would 
undoubtedly  be  the  attempt  to  give  up  all  re- 
semblance to  natural  form,  and  to  create  a 
purely  abstract  language  of  form  —  a  visual 
music;  and  the  later  works  of  Picasso  show  this 
clearly  enough.  They  may  or  may  not  be 
successful  in  their  attempt.  It  is  too  early  to 
be  dogmatic  on  the  point,  which  can  only  be 
decided  when  our  sensibilities  to -such  abstract 
form  have  been  more  practised  than  they  are 
at  present.  But  I  would  suggest  that  there  is 
nothing  ridiculous  in  the  attempt  to  do  this. 
Such  a  picture  as  Picasso's  "Head  of  a  Man" 
would  undoubtedly  be  ridiculous  if,  having  set 
out  to  make  a  direct  imitation  of  the  actual 
model,  he  had  been  incapable  of  getting  a 
better  likeness."  ROGER  FKY. 

"For  twenty  years  past,  or  more,  painters 
have  been  following  the  lead  set  by  writers,  not 
only  in  the  novels  and  dramas  of  life,  but  also 
in  philosophy,  and  have  been  trying  to  get 
back  to  something  fundamental. 

"On  the  one  hand,  they  have  tried  to  express 
what  we  feel  of  life  instinctively;  and,  on  the 

[9] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

other,  to  express  that  feeling  intellectually,  in  as 
abstract  a  manner  as  possible.  In  a  word, 
pure  feeling  is  what  they  aim  to  express;  that 
is  to  say,  feeling,  unalloyed  by  association  of 
ideas;  the  sort  of  feeling,  in  fact,  that  one  may 
experience  while  listening  to  music;  the  sort  of 
feeling  that  I  have  enjoyed,  as  many  of  my 
readers  have,  in  the  glorious  experience  of  a 
walk  among  the  mountains.  The  incidents, 
the  personalities  that  make  up  the  accidents 
of  life  have  been  left  behind;  the  narrowness  of 
time  and  space  that  hedges  one  around  in  the 
valley  or  the  plain  have  been  forgotten.  .  .  . 

"This  being  so,  what  can  the  artist  do  to 
create  an  illusion  of  the  fact?  How  far  can  he 
substitute  for  actual  experience  in  its  purest  form 
the  suggestion  and  stimulation  of  its  imagined 
equivalent?  This,  as  I  understand  it,  has  been 
for  some  time  and  continues  to  be  the  reason 
and  explanation  of  the  modern  movement. 

"The  movement  is  necessarily  the  antithesis 
of  representation,  considered  as  an  end  in 
itself,  whether  the  representation  be  natural- 
istic, such  as  our  eyesight  immediately  recog- 
nizes the  truth  of,  or  academic,  namely,  such  as 
we  would  have  the  facts  appear  if  we  could  make 
them  over  to  conform  to  certain  associated 
ideas  we  have  acquired  of  what  is  perfect." 

CHARLES  H.  CAFFIN. 

Says  C.  Lewis  Hind:  "The  solid  aspect  of 
things  has  been  painted  superbly.  Our  sensa- 
tion of  them,  which  is  really  a  much  commoner 
experience  to  all  of  us,  is  rarely  touched.  That 

[10] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

is  why  pictures  are  not  popular.  They  deal 
only  with  a  fourth  of  life.  When  a  man  like 
Matisse  audaciously  flashes  something  of  the 
unexplored  three  fourths  on  canvas  it  startles 
and  angers  us. 

"Van  Gogh  broke  a  path  into  that  three 
fourths  of  life  which  I  repeat  has  never  been 
explored  in  painting. 

"We  are  now  offered  the  beginning  of  an  art 
that  gives  to  a  thing  the  part  that  endures. 
The  work  of  these  painters  appeals  to  the 
imagination. " 

In  the  two  opinions,  selected  from  scores  in 
opposition  to  the  movement,  it  will  be  noticed 
that  no  answer  is  made  to  the  argument  of  the 
new  cult.  These  writers  assume  that  the  bur- 
den of  proof  lies  with  the  innovators. 

"To  go  to  an  exhibition  with  a  solicitude 
*  about  meaning  and  about  life '  at  the  expense 
of  matters  of  technique  is  not  simply  to  beg  the 
question;  it  is  to  give  it  away  with  both  hands. 
In  art,  elements  of  *  meaning'  and  '  life'  do  not 
exist  until  the  artist  has  mastered  those  techni- 
cal processes  by  which  he  may  or  may  not  have 
the  genius  to  call  them  into  being.  This  is  not 
an  opinion.  It  is  a  statement  of  fact.  To 
exclude  technique  from  art  is  no  more  possible 
than  it  is  to  dispense  in  architecture  with  pon- 
derable substances.  If  we  lay  stress  upon  the 
point  it  is  because  we  have  here  the  one  chief 
source  of  danger.  What  the  student  of  these 
strange  'isms'  needs  to  be  warned  against  is 

[11] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

the  specious  argument  that  he  cannot  test  them 
by  any  principles  of  criticism  hitherto  known 
to  him,  but  must  look  at  a  picture  as  though  it 
were  something  else,  and  admire  it  for  qualities 
which  he  cannot  see  in  it  but  must  take  on  faith. 
There  are  numbers  of  nominally  intelligent 
persons  who  seem  really  to  believe  that  such  an 
hypothesis  is  defensible.  .  .  . 

"  In  the  process  Matisse  would  appear  to  have 
relinquished  all  respect  for  technique,  all  feeling 
for  his  medium,  to  have  been  content  to  daub 
his  canvas  with  linear  and  tonal  coarseness. 
The  bulbous,  contorted  bodies  in  his  figure- 
pieces  are  in  no  wise  expressive  of  any  new  and 
rationalized  canon  of  form.  They  are  false  to 
nature,  they  are  ugly  as  the  halting  efforts  of 
the  veriest  amateur  are  ugly,  and,  in  short,  their 
negation  of  all  that  true  art  implies  is  significant 
of  just  the  smug  complacency  to  which  we  have 
alluded.  Whether  through  laziness  or  through 
ignorance  Matisse  has  come  to  the  point  where 
he  feels  that  in  painting  an  interior  like  his 
'Panneau  Rouge'  or  nudes  like  'Les  Capu- 
cines*  or  *Le  Luxe,'  he  is  exercising  the 
function  of  an  artist,  and,  of  course,  there  are 
crowds  of  half-baked  individuals  who  are  ready 
to  tell  him  that  he  is  right.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  these  things  are  not  works  of  art;  they  are 
feeble  impertinences."  ROYAL  CORTISSOZ. 

Says  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox,  speaking  upon  the 
"Illusions  of  Progress": 

"The  race  grows  madder  and  madder.  It  is 
hardly  two  years  since  we  first  heard  of  Cubism, 

[12] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

and  already  the  Futurists  are  calling  the 
Cubists  reactionary.  Even  the  gasping  critics, 
pounding  manfully  in  the  rear,  have  thrown 
away  all  impedimenta  of  traditional  standards 
in  the  desperate  effort  to  keep  up  with  what 
seems  less  a  march  than  a  stampede.  Let  us 
then  clear  our  minds  of  the  illusion  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  progress  in  the  fine  arts.  We 
may  with  a  clear  conscience  judge  each  new 
work  for  what  it  appears  in  itself  to  be,  asking 
of  it  that  it  be  noble  and  beautiful  and  reason- 
able, not  that  it  be  novel  and  progressive. 
If  it  be  a  great  art  it  will  be  novel  enough,  for 
there  will  be  a  great  mind  behind  it,  and  no  two 
great  minds  are  alike.  And  if  it  be  novel  with- 
out being  great,  how  shall  we  be  the  better  off? 
Even  should  the  detestable  things  produced 
now  prove  to  be  not  the  mere  freaks  of  a  dis- 
eased intellect  they  seem,  but  a  necessary  out- 
growth of  the  conditions  of  the  age  and  a  true 
prophecy  of  the  *  art  of  the  future/  they  are  not 
necessarily  the  better  for  that.  It  is  only  that 
the  future  will  be  unlucky  in  its  art. " 

"These  amorphous  conceits,  we  read,  aim 
to  'pictorially  represent*  the  'cellular  and  ner- 
vous reactions  which  carry  the  messages  of 
sense  perception  to  the  brain.'  Right  here  let 
us  see  whether  we  are  in  the  realm  of  sense  or 
nonsense.  'Pictorial'  means  nothing  else  than 
presentation  over  again  —  hence  representation 
—  of  visual  experiences.  It  can  mean  no 
other  experiences  than  visual  ones,  because 
vision  is  the  only  sense  by  which  we  can  become 

[13] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

cognizant  of  a  design  on  canvas.  Non-visual 
experiences  are  therefore  impossible  of  represen- 
tation, so  that  to  talk  of  reproducing  'shivers,' 
'emotions,'  and  'thrills'  is  nonsense,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  the  claim  to  represent  'the 
cellular  and  nervous  reactions  which  carry 
messages  to  the  brain.'  Do  not  laugh  —  merely 
recall  that  obviously  all  expression  is  of  some 
element  of  consciousness,  and  that  'cellular 
reactions  carrying  messages'  are  no  more  ele- 
ments of  consciousness  than  is  the  growth  of 
one's  toe-nails  —  nor  a  bit  more  important  to 
one's  neighbors. 

"And  it  is  further  nonsense  to  talk  of  'carry- 
ing messages  of  sense  perception  to  the  brain,' 
because  'perception'  takes  place  only  in  the 
brain  itself,  and  hence  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  'message  of  sense  perception.'  This  whole 
farrago  of  jargon  of  scientific  language  empty 
of  scientific  knowledge  is  nonsense.  These 
'sensations'  we  hear  about  'reproducing'  are 
impossible  of  reproduction  —  even  in  the  mind, 
still  more  on  canvas  —  for  when  they  are  gone 
they  are  gone  forever.  What  takes  their  place 
is  not  a  sensation  at  all,  but  a  memory,  and  a 
memory  is  not  a  sensation." — N.  Y.  Post. 

The  presumption  of  soundness  of  premise  and 
argument  on  the  part  of  the  Post  Impression- 
ists may  be  had  in  the  announcement  of  Clive 
Bell  when  in  his  article  upon  the  second  exhibi- 
tion at  the  Grafton  Galleries,  London,  he  de- 
clares, "The  victory  is  already  won." 

In  the  face  of  this,  and  of  such  a  statement 

[14] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  AET 

from  another  as  that  "the  best  thing  for  real 
art  would  be  to  burn  all  existing  galleries  of  art,'* 
it  would  seem  worth  while  to  hold  up  to  the 
minutest  inspection  the  claims  of  this  new 
philosophy  of  art. 

II 

The  first  thing  that  may  be  noticed  in  the 
pronouncements  of  several  of  the  advocates 
quoted,  is  that  they  have  not  come  together  on 
any  fixed  creed  and  that  then*  platforms  dis- 
agree in  essential  particulars. 

While  Clive  Bell  declares  that  the  "new" 
artist  regards  his  object  as  "an  end  in  itself," 
Mr.  Fry  makes  it  clear  that  it  is  not  the  thing 
itself  which  shall  engage  us  but  what  is  sug- 
gested thereby  to  "our  contemplative  vision," 
and  Mr.  Hind  reminds  us  that  these  painters 
are  breaking  a  path  toward  the  unexplored, 
their  work  appealing  to  the  imagination. 

Mr.  Caffin  most  ably  states  the  case  when  he 
inquires,  "How  far  can  the  artist  substitute 
for  actual  experience  the  suggestion  of  its 
imagined  equivalent?  The  movement  is  neces- 
sarily the  antithesis  of  representation  considered 
as  an  end  in  itself. " 

"We  expect,"  says  Mr.  Bell,  "a  work  of 
plastic  art  to  have  more  in  common  with  a 
piece  of  music  than  a  colored  photograph. " 

The  principles  governing  plastic  art  and 
music  are  of  course  identical;  the  two  arts  are 
therefore  germane.  The  colored  photograph 
is  only  one  of  these  arts  in  emphasis  through 
an  artless  process;  but  the  strict  difference 

[15] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

between  these  arts  is  that  we  hear  one  and  see 
the  other,  and  in  consequence  the  technical  proc- 
esses are  as  wide  as  creating  a  perfume  for 
smelling  or  a  sweetmeat  for  tasting. 

Says  Mr.  Davidson:  "The  extremists  are 
always  comparing  their  work  with  music.  But 
the  parallel  is  not  true.  Take  the  composi- 
tions of  Debussy,  for  example;  no  matter  how 
far  they  depart  from  their  predecessors  they  are 
never  incomprehensible,  because  their  author 
keeps  within  the  limitations  of  the  science  of 
music." 

Herein  is  quite  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter; 
these  people  are  attempting  to  touch  one  sense 
through  the  processes  belonging  distinctively  to 
another.  To  ask  us  to  hear  the  music  of  a 
statue  or  picture  is  no  less  absurd  than  to  ask 
how  the  perfume  of  the  lily  tastes  or  what  its 
odor  looks  like;  or  what  a  nocturne  in  F  smells 
like.  For  one,  architecture  has  seemed  like 
"frozen  music,"  toCorot  his  painting  appealed 
as  "my  little  music,"  but  the  charm  of  these 
golden  metaphors  may  be  spoiled  by  forcing  the 
fact,  and,  having  killed  the  poetry,  we  are  left 
with  only  the  dead  goose. 

"Every  one  of  them,"  says  Mr.  Hind,  "has 
something  to  say  that  could  not  be  said  in 
another  form;"  and  here  again  we  are  obliged 
to  challenge. 

In  reality  everything  for  which  expression  is 
evoked  by  these  means  could  be  better  said 
through  the  form  of  literature. 

Post  Impressionism  is  an  attempt  to  make 
plastic  art  accomplish  what  by  its  nature  it  is 

[16] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  AET 

less  fitted  to  perform  than  poetry  or  music.  Di- 
rectly upon  using  a  line  as  a  symbol,  a  color 
or  a  form  as  symbols,  the  mind  engages  itself 
with  these,  it  sees  them  in  their  dimensions  and 
color;  it  sees  them  likewise  as  associated  with 
other  lines,  dimensions,  and  colors  in  the  same 
work;  it  begins  its  activity  of  comparison,  it 
takes  their  measures,  it  apprehends  their 
quantities,  their  qualities;  the  mind  receives, 
inspects,  and  perchance  enjoys  them.  All  this, 
literature  relieves  one  of.  The  word  has  no  such 
quantitative  encumbrance.  It  does  not  pass 
through  long  corridors  handing  out  its  passport 
to  several  sentries.  It  arrives  at  once,  the 
"winged  word"  of  the  Greek  poet;  and  Pegasus 
is  its  true  symbol.  The  words  arm,  hand,  leg, 
call  up  only  a  general  notion  of  these  objects, 
but  when  these  are  spoken  by  graphic  art  they 
become  particular.  The  fundamentally  of 
idea  which  they  aim  at,  alas!  becomes  concrete, 
and  their  generalization,  particularized. 

Lessing's  Essay  on  the  Laocoon  is  still  a 
vital  document  which  Post  Impressionism  may 
do  well  to  study.  Their  line  thins  and  melts 
away  at  this  point. 

When  the  greatest  of  Greek  poets  was  con- 
tent to  describe  his  heroine,  Helen  of  Troy,  by 
the  simple  declaration  that  when  she  appeared 
old  men  experienced  the  emotions  of  youth,  he 
created  a  far  more  lovely  woman  than  had  he 
particularized,  and  a  lovelier  woman  than  any 
sculptor  or  painter  could  express,  strive  how- 
soever hard  he  may;  but  what,  were  Matisse 
to  essay  the  task! 

[171 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

What  point  in  the  scale  of  approach  to  the 
Homeric  attainment  would  he  be  likely  to 
touch?  or  can  it  be  reasonably  expected  that 
this  system,  with  its  handicap  both  of  omissions 
and  commissions,  can  ever  be  expressive  of 
physical  beauty?  And  further,  is  it  possible 
that  the  national  mind  of  any  people,  even 
that  of  the  progressive  French  nation,  would 
be  willing  to  accept  such  expression  as  this 
school  offers  for  sculpture  commemorative  of 
its  great  ones?  Can  we  imagine  the  statesman, 
the  soldier,  or  philanthropist  put  into  the  eternal 
marble  or  bronze  and  erected  on  a  public 
pedestal  as  a  lasting  inheritance  for  the  Nation 
—  executed  in  the  manner  of  Post  Impres- 
sionist formulas? 

If  art  be  "the  manifestation  of  the  eternal 
ideal,"  the  acceptation  of  the  art  here  offered 
can  take  place  only  after  the  uprooting  of  all 
that  is  back  of  that  ideal,  a  reconstruction 
of  those  processes  of  thought  universally  ac- 
cepted for  twenty-five  centuries. 

Again,  both  Mr.  Bell  and  Mr.  Fry  agree  that 
the  object  of  this  art  is  to  express  and  provoke 
emotion,  and  that  in  this  accomplishment 
"ostentation  of  skill  is  more  fatal  than  down- 
right incapacity."  Here  again  the  advocate 
is  assuming  an  unfair  premise  in  his  argument 
before  the  jury.  The  true  artist  is  never 
ostentatious.  With  an  emotion  as  his  inspira- 
tion and  goal,  he  resorts  to  no  subterfuge,  but, 
full  panoplied,  strives  for  the  creation  of  a  like 
emotion  in  "the  other  man,"  which  he  assures, 
by  every  expedient,  to  be  made  what  is  wanted, 

[18] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

rather  than  a  haphazard  sensation  from  a 
vague  expression  provoking  the  emotion  —  for- 
sooth of  pity  for  incapacity. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Caffin's  enthusiasm  has  put 
him  off  his  guard,  and  in  rapt  exultation  over 
the  freedom  of  the  new  art  he  takes  a  fling  at 
the  solicitude  which  an  Academician  has  for 
"values." 

Too  true,  they  also  are  marked  for  the  guil- 
lotine. What  a  carnival  of  anarchy!  Now 
watch  the  moplots  dance  on  the  corpse  of  that 
which  has  outlived  its  usefulness.  But  what 
are  values,  and  why  are  they  at  last  thought 
valueless! 

If  for  the  painter  tone  is  the  polar  star,  value 
is  the  rudder.  By  these  two  means  the  artist 
steers  his  craft.  The  steering  is  proved  to  be 
wrong  when  he  is  betrayed  by  a  false  value. 
In  music  it  is  the  one  voice  out  of  pitch  with  the 
chorus,  it  is  the  illogical  note  which  ruins  the 
solo.  In  poetry  it  is  the  weak  rhyme  or  the 
lame  spot  in  the  metre.  In  architecture  it  is 
the  element  out  of  scale.  In  oratory  it  is  the 
climax  in  the  wrong  place,  or  even  the  right 
word  in  the  wrong  place.  In  painting  it  is  any 
error  of  tone  upon  a  surface,  and  howsoever 
small  it  may  be,  it  announces  itself  at  once, 
the  dead  fly  in  the  ointment.  It  may  not  be 
of  importance  in  itself;  the  damage  is  not  meas- 
ured by  its  size  or  degree,  but  by  the  area 
which  it  influences. 

We  cannot  believe  that  Mr.  Caffin  is  willing 
to  assume  Samson's  responsibility  of  pushing 
away  this  pillar  and  demolishing  the  temple. 

[19] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

It  is  cited  as  an  example  of  the  power  of  this 
new  intoxicant,  which,  like  the  loco-weed,  will 
set  the  best-mannered  horse  in  the  world  upon  a 
series  of  mad  plunges  in  his  effort  to  free  him- 
self of  all  restraint.  To  rail  at  "  values"  and  the 
quality  which  they  insure  is  to  discountenance 
painting  from  the  time  when,  lifted  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  children  who  sought  to  revive  it 
in  the  twelfth  century,  it  took  its  place  as  an 
art  reborn  under  the  control  of  maturer  minds, 
and  up  to  the  present,  a  period  spanned  by 
Botticelli  and  Sargent.  The  new  species  of  art 
introduced  by  Matisse  makes  no  use  of  the  super 
qualities  through  which  each  one  of  the  arts  has 
attained  development .  The ' '  quality ' '  which  is 
the  gauge  differentiating  art  from  "some  art" 
and  "less  art"  is  with  him  traced,  now  and  then, 
in  the  happy  grasp  of  an  essential  expression  or 
characteristic,  or,  and  quite  as  rarely,  hi  an 
agreeable  harmony  of  color,  or  design.  The 
assay  of  Post  Impressionism  as  an  art  would 
seem  therefore  to  be  very  light,  its  dross  out- 
weighing its  gold  in  overwhelming  measure. 

But  this  is  not  the  final  word  nor  the  end  of 
the  argument  any  more  than  the  present  phase 
of  Post  Impressionism  is  its  final  expression. 
As  every  art  grows  out  of  its  primitive  condition, 
so  may  this.-  As  an  art  it  may  be  contemp- 
tible, as  a  philosophy  it  may  be  right.  There  is  no 
need  of  harking  back  to  childhood,  of  coddling 
the  intuitions  and  slamming  the  door  in  the  face 
of  our  intelligence  to  accomplish  that  for  which 
this  philosophy  stands*  It  is  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  the  end  of  "suggesting  emotion"  and 

[20] 


POTATO  GATHEREES  —  Van  Gogh 


IDYLL  —  Gauguin 

« 

TOST  IMPRESSIONISM  CONCERNED  WITH  RHYTHMIC  LINE, 
DESIGN  AND  PRIMITIVE  EXPRESSION 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

"finding  an  equivalent  for  life"  is  best  attained 
by  uncertainty  of  means.  Simplicity  of  line 
may  attain  it,  but  not  in  the  hands  of  the 
ingenue. 

Ten  years  ago  the  writer  made  the  prediction 
that  the  painting  of  the  future  would  make 
much  more  out  of  the  great  capacity  which 
line  contains.  The  present  tendency  comes 
as  a  proof  of  that,  but  it  starts  too  far  back. 
When  line  becomes  the  contemplation  of 
painters  in  its  serious  and  scientific  essence, 
a  truly1  new  art  may  be  evolved.  In  sculpture  a 
striking  example  is  had  in  bas-relief  by  David- 
son. In  the  "Potato  Gatherers,"  herewith, 
by  Van  Gogh,  there  is  also  an  expression  of  it. 

m 

Simplification  through  the  synthesis,  of  which 
this  movement  is  the  culmination  may  be  seen 
all  the  way  up  and  down  the  pathway  of  art. 
When  instead  of  making  all  the  twigs  on  a  win- 
ter branch,  as  per  the  Dusseldorf  school,  these 
were  swept  together  as  one  may  see  in  Corot, 
it  was  a  step  in  the  direction  of  Matisse.  Here 
was  one  stroke  of  the  brush  suggesting  a  number 
of  separate  facts.  Such  a  statement  contains 
the  soul  of  the  branch  in  exactly  the  degree 
that  the  soul  of  the  face  in  manifested  by  the 
newer  cult  and  as  may  be  seen  no  less  in  the 
technique  of  Millet.  WTien  Whistler  made 
smudges  on  his  Battersea  Bridge  and  called 

lFor  an  expansion  of  this  see  "Constructive  Principles  of  Art," 
by  same  author. 

[21] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

them  figures,  to  the  disgust  of  Ruskin,  or  when 
Inness  used  the  suggestion  of  a  daub  of  paint 
for  a  cow  or  a  countryman,  to  the  confusion  of 
the  bourgeois,  their  proceedure  in  art  was 
exactly  that  of  Matisse.  The  only  artists  who 
have  kept  away  from  the  open  door  of  sugges- 
tion are  those  whose  natural  love  of  detail 
promoted  their  creed  for  absolute  truth:  Ruys- 
dael,  David,  Meissonier,  Alma  Tadema,  etc. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  perceive  two  kinds  of 
suggestion  in  graphic  art;  that  which  is  partial 
and  that  which  is  complete;  and  again  that 
which  is  highly  synthetic,  thoughtful,  and  even 
profound  in  its  technique,  and  that  which,  in  its 
failure  at  representation,  frankly  leaves  the 
beholder  to  his  own  conclusions. 

The  suggestion,  through  thoughtfully  selected 
parts,  touches  the  highest  reaches  of  art. 
Behold  the  pen  drawings  of  Rembrandt,  or 
his  etchings  in  their  first  states,  wherein  a  line 
may  stand  for  several  attributes  of  a  thing; 
its  length,  contour,  weight,  etc.  We  take  a 
vast  delight  in  creating  a  sky  out  of  the  few 
eloquent  lines  from  the  needle  of  a  great  etcher, 
or  wander  with  him  afield  over  wide  areas, 
occupying  them  at  leisure  where  he  has  rapidly 
passed,  staking  his  claims.  This  is  that  sug- 
gestion which  the  artist  commands  by  his 
mastery  of  the  whole  subject  and  by  his  selec- 
tion of  specific  means.  No  less  may  it  be  seen 
in  the  Corot branch  or  the  face  of  the  "Sower.'* 
In  these,  completeness  is  sedulously  omitted 
with  the  same  caution  as  with  Stevenson 
when  he  approaches  his  d&noument. 

[22] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

Not  so  with  Matisse.  With  his  art  there 
is  no  space  unfilled,  there  is  no  part  unde- 
veloped. Every  part  is  accounted  for  and 
every  part  bespeaks  design,  (which  really  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  idea  for  which  Post 
Impressionism  stands) .  In  place  of  the  sensa- 
tion of  masterful  capacity  held  in  reserve 
through  unfinish,  rises  the  impression  of  apol- 
ogy for  what  has  been  inadequately  performed. 
In  place  of  an  opportunity  to  complete  the 
incomplete  we  are  confronted  with  the  job  all 
done,  and  so  badly,  that  we  are  provoked  to  do 
it  all  over  again.  And  at  this  admission  there 
are  persons  rising  all  over  the  hall  of  the  "new" 
convention,  exclaiming:  "That  is  just  what 
we  want!"  But  the  artist  is  a  creator,  the 
maker  of  a  given  thing  which  as  a  creation  is 
complete.  Instead,  Matisse  uses  the  means  of 
outline  and  pigment  for  the  creation  by  the 
observer' of.  something  at  which  he  hints.  We 
take  no  pleasure  in  the  surfaces  which  he 
paints  for  they  are  without  quality,  nor  in  the 
semblance  per  se  for  these  are  monstrous.  The 
pleasure  to  us  is  in  finding  something  which  lies 
beyond  his  guide  post. 

It  is  but  a  repetition  of  what  the  world  has 
already  lived  through  and  rebelled  against,  a 
mistaken  notion  that  the  innocent  cause  of 
goodness  is  adorable.  To  the  devout  one 
kneeling  before  the  image  of  the  Virgin  the 
newer  thought  has  said:  "Why  magnify  Mary 
—  had  you  not  better  see  Christ?"  The  col- 
lector of  cocoons  from  which  beauty  has  escaped 
may  take  a  scientific  pleasure  in  his  collection 

[23] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

but  they  give  him  no  aesthetic  thrill.  To  him 
the  lover  of  art  says:  "These  have  an  interest, 
but  only  in  their  possibilities.  If  you  seek 
a  fuller  rapture,  come  look  at  my  butterflies." 
To  which  the  other  retorts:  "If  you  can't  see 
a  butterfly  by  looking  at  a  cocoon  you  have  no 
imagination." 

Matisse  and  his  imitators  are  busying  them- 
selves with  speculative  philosophy,  assisted  by 
the  first  principles  of  drawing  and  painting,  and 
they  touch  art  only  as  graphic  assistants  of  an 
idea,  and  not  as  creators  of  art.  Their  work  is 
the  scaffold  of  the  building  and  pointing  to  it 
they  bid  us  enjoy  the  edifice. 

To  him  yearning  for  an  aesthetic  thrill  it 
should  only  be  necessary  to  call  Nelly  from  her 
blocks  and  say,  "Make  me  a  picture  that  I 
may  dwell  upon  it  and  see  visions,"  or  appeal 
to  the  postman  or  the  car  conductor.  In  any- 
thing these  may  do  in  their  innocence  of  mind 
will  be  found  the  pure  soul  out  of  which  aesthetic 
joy  may  be  evolved. 

The  artist  will  then  be  he  who  hands  out 
his  synopsis  of  a  play,  complete  from  the  rise 
to  the  fall  of  the  curtain,  with  the  exits  and 
entrances  marked,  and  the  general  thread  of 
dialogue  indicated;  or  that  serviceable  man  of 
the  magazine  who  indicates  what  might  be 
written  and  how  illustrated,  the  poet  who 
produces  his  unmetrical  scheme  and  tells  you 
to  finish  it  in  rhyme  and  metre.  The  soul  is 
surely  here  but  as  to  the  rest  of  it,  what 
matter;  hand  it  over  to  the  imagination. 

Passing  from  the  "  innocence  of  eye  "  of  true 

[24] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

Impressionism  we  have  at  length  reached  the 
level  of  the  innocence  of  brain  which  seems 
readily  to  soften  to  those  numerous  influences 
outheld  by  the  imagination. 

IV 

Up  to  the  present  the  real  art  in  painting 
has  rested  with  greatest  force  upon  the  quality 
of  tone.  The  worth  in  the  scales  of  the  col- 
lector and  the  seller  of  pictures  has  been  deter- 
mined with  greatest  attention  to  that  point. 
Consciously  or  unconsciously  judgment  of  all 
ages  past  and  that  of  the  present  upon  all 
past  ages  of  painting  has  found  in  this  the 
pivot  of  value.  Now  tone,  with  slightly  varied 
interpretation,  means  one  thing  to  all  men. 
It  means  color  association  in  all  parts  of  a 
picture,  dominating  colors  of  the  picture  dis- 
tributed in  lesser  degrees  of  force  through- 
out the  work.  In  short,  it  is  color  unity, 
either  of  analogous  or  contrasted  harmony, 
more  easily  appreciated  in  a  Whistlerian 
"symphony"  than  in  a  full  orchestration  of 
color  by  Rubens,  but,  nevertheless,  the  point 
of  effort  to  all  painters  and  quite  as  important 
to  Monet  as  to  Dupre  or  Puvis.  By  universal 
agreement  the  sense  of  tone  is  the  polar  star 
of  the  painter.  There  have  been  periods 
when  this  was  wrongly  judged  as  to  its  impor- 
tance and  those  periods  have  never  failed  of 
their  snubbing.  The  draughtsmen,  of  the  classic 
period  of  David,  forgot  it,  the  landscape 
painters  of  a  time  previous  to  this  have  had  it 

[25] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

secured  to  their  works  by  time  and  varnish, 
which  in  consequence  now  possesses  value  as 
painting  which  is  not  entirely  their  own.  The 
chief  difference  between  Raphael  and  Titian, 
Delaroche  and  Delacroix  lies  just  here.  The 
general  influence  of  Ruskin,  directing  the 
painter  toward  truth  as  all  paramount,  and  with 
no  thought  of  tone,  is  accountable  for  the  arid 
period  in  English  landscape  following  Turner 
and  for  our  own  Hudson  River  School.  So 
insistent  to  the  modern  mind  has  the  grasp  of 
this  commanding  idea  become,  that  even 
Gauguin,  who  thought  to  break  all  conventions, 
was  still,  true  artist  as  he  was,  never  dis- 
possessed of  this  restraint.  No  more  was 
Lautrec-Toulouse  who  aimed  at  the  raw  essence 
of  things,  but  was  nevertheless  a  painter;  nor 
indeed  any  one  howsoever  stimulated  he  might 
be  by  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  vital  thing 
in  art.  All  these  have  remained  painters, 
loving  the  surface  and  steadfast  in  the  quality 
of  it;  Bellows,  Van  Gogh,  Cezanne,  Glackens, 
Mark  Fisher,  Dearth,  Weir,  Hassam,  and  the 
many  others  who  in  any  degree  have  embraced 
the  impressionistic  formula  come  together, 
joining  hands  upon  this  line,  arranging  them- 
selves along  the  cliff  where  Matisse  has  led, 
and  look  down  to  find  him  at  the  bottom  where 
he  has  chosen  to  go  in  his  escape  from  the  past. 
His  separation  from  all  of  these  is  complete. 
He  frankly  chooses  not  to  be  a  painter.  He 
has  ignored  the  quality  of  painting.  He  pre- 
fers to  be  the  child  in  spite  of  those  conditions 
which  strongly  demand  the  mature  mind. 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

In  Matisse  therefore  we  have  a  man  intent 
on  presenting  a  fundamental,  unadorned,  un- 
developed idea,  as  a  babe  in  its  cradle,  asking 
us  to  reclaim,  clothe,  and  in  time  find  it  com- 
panionable, through  those  possibilities  which  are 
bound  to  evolve  into  completeness. 

One  may  admit  reason  in  the  idea,  but 
demand  proof  of  rationality  in  the  means. 
His  efforts,  he  declares,  satisfy  him,  and  also 
that  he  would  not  have  different  any  picture 
he  ever  painted.  In  this  he  strikes  a  note  of 
insincerity;  for  he  admits  some  of  his  work  was 
so  turbulent  that  he  could  not  bear  it  on  his 
own  wall.  A  second  conies  with  his  reply  to 
the  lady  who  exclaimed:  "That  self-portrait 
looks  as  if  it  might  have  been  done  by  your 
little  daughter."  "My  striving,"  retorted  the 
painter,  "is  to  see  things  just  as  she  does." 

The  seeing  with  the  pure  and  unsullied 
vision  of  childhood  is  a  beautiful,  and  perhaps 
an  interesting,  mode,  but  does  this  purity  of 
vision  entail  the  immaturity  of  its  expression, 
which  belongs  to  childhood? 

The  seeing  eye  is  not  the  intuitive  eye;  it  is  the 
eye  of  experience.  The  difference  in  the  work 
of  a  student  during  the  first  season  out  of  doors 
and  the  third  is  not  one  of  eyes,  but  of  plain 
utility  in  the  employment  of  his  vision.  The 
universal  law  of  development  has  been  expressed 
by  one  of  the  wise  men  of  antiquity:  "When 
I  became  a  man  I  put  away  childish  things," 
and  the  effort  to  back  away  from  man's  estate 
and  recoil  from  its  obligations,  seeking  absolu- 
tion for  incompetency  of  expression  beneath 

[27] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  AET 

the  shelter  of  the  primitive  vision  of  childhood 
is  unmanly. 

The  assumption  in  defending  the  "move- 
ment" from  this  aspersion  is  that  the  windows 
of  childhood  open  to  the  purest  vistas,  expos- 
ing the  most  adequate  means  for  the  expression 
of  ideas  and  emotions,  and  altogether  the  most 
worthy  to  offer  the  vast  majority  of  mankind 
to  whom  art  appeals.  Whether  the  child  be  one 
in  years,  or  merely  childish  in  his  capacity  for 
form  expression,  this  condition  is  frankly  pre- 
ferred by  the  votaries  of  the  new  school  to  that 
condition  of  maturity  enabling  man  to  both 
conceive  a  subject  with  judgment  and  express 
it  with  adequacy. 

Jacob  Epstein  might  well  be  asked  why  his 
statue  of  Euphemia  is  more  of  a  Euphemia  by 
turning  her  toes  out  at  an  angle  of  180  degrees, 
a  feat  which  cannot  be  accomplished  without 
f  ailing,  or  why  a  woman  with  plump  cheeks  and 
a  staunch  neck  should  have  wasted  to  a  skeleton 
at  her  hips. 

Why  in  the  portrait  of  Pere  Tanguy,  by 
Van  Gogh,  does  an  arm  of  one  half  man's  length 
aid  our  impression  of  the  man,  or  the  place- 
ment of  the  eye,  purposely  too  high.  Endless 
multiplication  of  such  questions  must  of  neces- 
sity follow  the  increasing  flux  of  these  enigmas. 

If  it  is  not  necessary  to  express  the  character 
of  a  landscape,  a  human  figure,  its  hands  and 
feet,  a  silk  hat  or  a  tree,  why  does  Matisse  fall 
back  on  drawing  sufficiently  to  make  his  self- 
portrait  look  like  himself  and  not  like  some  other 
man  or  no  man!  Why,  in  a  word,  if  his  own 

[28J 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

nose  demands  a  determinate  line  for  its  ex- 
pression, should  he  deny  as  expressive  a  line 
to  any  other  man  for  his  nose,  or  why  for  his 
foot  or  his  hand.  Why  in  the  one  case  lean  on 
Nature,  accepting  an  intelligent  line  for  her 
revealing,  and  in  another  case  refuse  the  intel- 
ligent means  for  her  revealing.  If,  in  the  one 
case,  a  given  line  was  acknowledged  to  be  right, 
why  in  an  analogous  case  should  it  be  regarded 
wrong  by  the  use  of  a  totally  different  line,  a 
conclusion  determined  by  the  artist's  assertion 
that  whatever  he  had  done  he  was  satisfied 
with.  At  this  point  therefore  we  are  approach- 
ing close  to  the  area  of  whims:  we  indeed  come 
near  to  childhood,  and  this  frankly  is  the  goal 
of  ambition  to  the  Matisse  school. 

Howsoever  willing  the  mind  and  catholic 
the  sentiments  which  one  may  turn  toward 
this  newest  conception  of  art,  the  questionable- 
ness  of  its  sincerity  evoked  by  these  and  count- 
less other  like  "eccentricities"  causes  us  to 
place  it  for  some  time  at  least  in  the  "house 
of  detention." 

In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  that  which  we 
recognize  as  giving  an  interest  to  this  work 
beyond  the  childlikeness  is  the  knowledge  of  art 
expressed  therein,  and  which  the  child  has  not 
attained  unto. 

It  is  a  case  of  the  newcomer  in  sheep's 
clothing,  we  think  we  see  the  lamb,  and  he 
beneath  the  disguise  wishes  us  to  see  just 
this  —  the  lamb;  but  he  nevertheless  on  occa- 
sions discloses  more  than  lamblike  intelligence. 
And  so  at  first  we  are  bewildered  and  then 

[29] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

sense  the  deception.  The  whole  is  an  attempt 
to  bring  together  two  poles  which  naturally 
separate  toward  opposite  directions. 

That  this  however  has  been  accomplished 
with  measurable  success,  some  of  the  great 
designs  of  Matisse  will  attest,  for  in  his  effort 
to  give  out  an  idea  through  a  design  he  has 
reduced  that  idea  to  its  simplest  expression. 

Herein  he  strikes  a  chord  divested  of  every 
extraneous  embellishment.  It  is  fundamental 
and  therefore  powerful;  and  the  sound  of  it 
is  lasting  because  uninterrupted.  Additions 
might  prove  interesting,  but  to  his  mind  are 
unnecessary.  Look  at  his  conception  of  the 
Dance;  awkward,  ponderous  people  disporting 
themselves  with  unfeigned  abandonment.  They 
move  with  no  especial  rhythm,  but  each  ani- 
mated with  an  individual  sense  of  pleasure  in 
the  exercise.  Each  is  emotional,  each  expres- 
sive of  that  energy  which  is  stimulated  by 
rhythmic  music.  There  are  no  accessories,  for 
accessories  would  not  aid  the  truly  fundamental 
notion  of  the  dance. 

Again  in  his  group  of  three,  with  a  tortoise, 
this  group  of  three  has  been  put  together  with 
a  knowledge  of  the  requirements  for  the  best 
adjustment  of  that  number.  Herein  the  child 
is  clearly  outclassed,  and  knowledge  by  experi- 
ence is  substituted  for  childlike  intuition.  But 
the  primitive  sense  is  introduced  in  making 
the  outline  purposely  faulty.  The  lines  of  the 
legs  are  wrong.  The  anatomy  is  uncertain  in 
spots.  The  longing  to  accomplish,  despite 
these  disabilities  however,  conquers,  and  the 

[30] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

group  is  placed  before  us  in  its  crude  organic 
lines  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  feel  the 
elementalism  of  the  design  revealing  a  primitive 
idea. 

When  applied  to  Decoration  one  must  can- 
didly admit  that  this  archaism  contains  a 
charm;  for  decoration  as  an  art  of  two  dimen- 
sions has,  in  its  simplicity,  appealed  to  all 
primitive  peoples,  and  their  designs,  if  balanced 
and  rhythmic,  possess  therein  the  desideratum. 

Could  one  demand  a  more  perfect  mode  of 
graphic  portrayal  for  decorative  purposes  than 
that  employed  by  Mr.  Chanler  in  his  sump- 
tuously colored  panels.  See  "  The  Stag  Hunt," 
herewith. 

But  the  question  naturally  arises,  could  not 
all  the  sensation  produced  by  these  pictures  of 
Matisse  be  accomplished  with  correct  though 
simplified  drawing?  Matisse  declares  he  draws 
"emotionally  and  without  the  aid  of  the  intelli- 
gence." Analyzed,  this  signifies  that  the  co- 
ordination which  should  exist  between  his 
emotions  and  his  means  of  expression  is  lacking: 
his  emotion  unaided  by  his  intellect  is  inade- 
quate. In  short,  he  does  not  know  how  to 
draw  automatically,  intuitively.  He  has  not 
perchance  heard  of  a  method  of  drawing  organ- 
ized in  Philadelphia  by  C.  G.  Leland,  and 
further  expanded  by  J.  L.  Tadd,  which  develops 
the  faculties  of  coordination  between  the  brain 
and  the  hand.  Pupils  of  this  system  are  able 
to  create  marvels  in  design  which  are  so  wonder- 
fully balanced  as  to  give  impression  of  mathe- 
matical measurement.  In  pictorial  design  the 

[31] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

figures  are  conceived  in  good  proportion,  but 
without  detail  —  men,  children,  running  deer, 
horses,  dogs,  etc.,  are  rendered  with  a  swift 
elementalism  which  is  truly  marvellous.  It  is 
all  a  matter  of  automatic  control  which,  when 
acquired,  gives  rein  to  emotional  suggestion  in 
an  endless  variety  of  forms. 

A  few  years  ago  I  witnessed  a  public  perfor- 
mance of  the  most  expert  students  from  a  class 
of  two  thousand  from  the  common  schools  of 
Philadelphia.  On  the  stage  was  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  virtuosos  of  painting  in 
this  country.  After  watching  their  swift  magic 
of  creation  in  design  and  pictorial  composition, 
executed  in  huge  size  at  arm's  length,  he  turned 
quickly  and  asked:  "Could  you  do  that?", 

"No." 

"Nor  I!  I  am  going  to  get  a  blackboard 
and  learn  how  to  draw. " 

Here  then  is  Matisse  wishing  to  draw  emo- 
tionally and  supposing  that  this  means  clumsily; 
a  man  having  a  large  class  of  pupils  whom  he 
forces  to  draw  academically  only  to  have  them 
forget  it  all  and  in  time  imitate  his  clumsi- 
ness. 

What  a  pity  he  could  not  shorten  his  march 
around  Robin  Hood's  barn  by  acquaintance 
with  a  system  which  forestalled  his  experiments 
by  about  twenty  years.  What  a  pity  that  he 
and  others  who  are  attempting  emotional 
drawing  by  a  method  which  should  be  dubbed 
second-childhood  art  should  not  know  that  the 
horse  cannot  be  taught  new  tricks,  in  his 
maturity,  by  old  rules;  but,  if  at  all,  only  by 

[32] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

a  logical  method  starting  with  that  faculty 
which  has  in  charge  the  result. 

No  one  can  successfully  coordinate  his  brain 
and  hand,  intuitively,  whose  life's  training  has 
been  to  acquire  knowledge  through  his  reason. 
Yet  we  see  attempts  at  this  by  a  growing  group 
of  Frenchmen,  now  of  the  present  fashion,  some 
of  whom  are  willing  to  place  their  signatures 
in  the  corners  of  these  little  trifles,  and  we  also 
see  collections  of  these  drawings  in  all  degrees 
of  success  and  failure  hung  in  some  of  our 
academies  to  the  bewilderment  of  the  students 
who  are  learning  to  draw  rationally. 

Augustus  Johns,  quite  in  sympathy  with  the 
new  movement,  declares,  "Matisse  has  a  big 
idea  but  cannot  yet  express  it."  Will  not 
some  one  interested  in  these  newer  struggles  di- 
rect attention  to  such  illumination  as  may  be 
found  in  "New  Methods  of  Art  Education,"  by 
J.  Liberty  Tadd;  Orange  Judd  and  Co.,  New 
York.  Price  $3.00  net. 


The  Greek  mind,  the  most  keen  and  penetrat- 
ing of  any  which  has  yet  turned  its  insight 
toward  art,  believed  that  the  complete  physical 
and  mental  man  at  his  best  was  barely  adequate 
to  the  task  of  producing  worthy  art.  Their 
notion  of  the  inner  spirit  of  things  was  as 
sagacious  and  demanding  as  that  of  the  modern 
"man  with  a  vision,"  but  in  proportion  as 
their  vision  was  clear  did  they  regard  imperative 
the  necessity  to  give  it  a  man's  expression. 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

The  desire  of  the  "new"  artist  to  express 
the  spirit  of  the  subject  through  an  innocence 
of  brain,  leaves  out  of  account  the  fact  that 
the  spirit  naturally  prefers  to  take  up  its 
residence  in  a  completed  not  to  say  a  well-made 
temple. 

It  is  no  more  unreasonable  to  expect  this 
than  to  suppose  the  spirit  of  God  will  take  up 
his  abode  in  the  heart  of  man  which  has  been 
polluted.  The  Greeks  did  not  expect  the 
essence  of  wisdom  could  find  expression  in  a 
Minerva  on  whom  to  look  would  only  be  to 
shudder.  While  declaring  sincerity  to  be  the 
essence  of  the  new  movement,  the  greatest  part 
of  this  multiform  effort  is  expressed  in  various 
inventions  seeking  some  different  mode  than  is 
natural  to  the  direct,  unaffected,  normal  estate 
of  manhood. 

Elsewhere  it  has  been  pointed  out  in  the 
discussion  on  Body,  Soul,  and  Spirit  which  as- 
sumes that  art,  expressive  of  man,  shall  repre- 
sent him  in  his  entirety,  that  its  privilege  is  to 
proclaim  his  trinity. 

Complete  art  recognizes  an  opportunity  in 
body,  in  soul,  and  in  spirit.  That  which  has 
body  only,  contains  scientific  truth,  the  work 
of  a  student.  Uniting  soul  with  this  it  becomes 
individual,  both  in  conception  and  technique. 
Advancing  into  the  range  of  spiritual  signifi- 
cance, it  sacrifices  neither  of  the  preceding 
qualities,  but  merely  expands  from  this  broad- 
ened basis.  • 

Our  rating  of  manhood  decides  that  physique 
is  but  one  third  of  the  man,  use  of  that  physique 

[34] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

for  labor  (physical  performance),  another 
third,  and  an  expansion  toward  mental  pos- 
sibilities, the  last  division  of  the  tripartite 
organism. 

The  latest  comers  in  art  discount  the  physique 
of  art,  enfeeble  a  manly  use  of  that  physique 
to  the  grade  of  childhood's  capacity,  and  present 
the  last  third  for  a  complete  whole.  What  is 
the  result  of  a  like  unsymmetrical  development 
of  man  himself?  Witness  it  in  the  high  priest 
of  present  Pueblo  Indians  of  America,  the 
medicine  man  of  the  recent  nomadic  tribes,  or 
the  truly  wonderful  fakirs  of  India.  Their 
communion  with  the  spirit-world  cannot  be 
obtained  through  the  robust  integument  of 
good  health.  The  body  must  be  sacrificed 
and  reduced  through  vigils  and  starvation  until 
the  spirit  can  dominate.  Thus  forced  it  may 
find  its  affinity  in  the  overworld. 

But  when  we  set  forth  to  hunt  up  a  man 
we  do  not  pause  for  one  of  these  specimens  of 
the  race. 

The  balance  of  power  in  the  empire  of  art 
is  surely  strengthened  by  this  triple  alliance. 
I  therefore  venture  the  following  two  reasons 
why  that  which  appeals  to  the  great  majority 
of  persons  practically  or  sentimentally  inter- 
ested in  art,  as  a  storm  now  menacing  its  past 
and  present  glory,  will  in  due  course  break  and 
scatter  with  no  other  ill  effects  than  the  cloud- 
ing of  certain  non-essentials  in  our  present  art, 
and  with  the  much  desired  result  of  clearing 
the  atmosphere  grown  dense  in  an  obsession 
concerning  the  objective  of  art. 
[35] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

In  the  first  place  the  claim  of  "sincerity" 
which  is  declared  to  be  the  heart  of  the  move- 
ment is  not  sincerity.  The  attention  called 
to  this  point  in  their  creed  cleverly  forestalls 
its  denial  in  an  attempt  to  guard  its  weakest 
spot,  but  it  nevertheless  must  be  assumed  that 
any  one  who  willingly  adopts  the  role  of  child- 
hood in  both  conception  and  expression  is  not 
sincere  with  himself.  His  attempted  return 
to  childhood  involves  an  avowal  of  disbelief, 
not  only  in  his  own  growth,  but  in  the  growth 
of  the  race,  and  in  so  grave  a  premise  we  must 
detect  insincerity.  The  supposition  that  the 
faith  of  little  children  is  a  recommendation 
having  to  do  with  mental  or  physical  capacity 
of  children  is  a  strange  subversion  of  a  palpable 
truth  —  namely,  that  faith  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  thought,  and  thought  remains  even  to 
this  present  the  lever  of  Archimedes. 

Touching  this  general  point  M.  De  Zayas 
offers  an  important  truth:  "The  impression 
caused  by  form,  the  conception  of  it,  its  inter- 
pretation, obeys  in  every  race  an  inevitable 
law.  The  progressive  evolution  marks  the 
anthropological  estate  of  the  races,  the  repre- 
sentation of  form  being  more  intense  the  more 
inferior  the  race  is;  for  it  is  a  principle  recog- 
nized by  psychology  that  the  psychic  intensity 
of  the  work  is  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the 
mental  state  of  the  individual  who  produced 
it,  while  the  Artistic  comprehension  of  the  indi- 

*Incidently  this  psychic  phenomenon  is  applicable  to  the  gen- 
eral argument  of  "The  Conception  of  Art"  in  its  emphasis  upon 
"quality." 

[361 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

vidual  is  in  direct  ratio  to  the  degree  of  civili- 
zation. 

"From  this  we  conclude  that  those  who 
imitate  the  work  of  children  produce  childish 
work  but  not  the  work  of  children. " 

In  the  case  of  Picasso  whose  philosophy  is  an 
ingenuous,  generalized  point  of  view,  broad 
enough  to  accommodate  all  the  world  that 
prefers  symbols  to  realities,  one  can  but  be 
annoyed  by  the  evident  care  with  which  some 
parts  of  his  symboled  scheme  are  executed,  to  a 
degree  beyond  any  possible  necessity  of  indicat- 
ing a  plane,  which  is  the  only  important  matter, 
and  the  free  carelessness  in  which  other 
planes  quite  as  essential  are  executed.  Study 
thoughtfully  the  work  entitled  "A  Woman" 
and  perhaps  the  palpable  fumbling  and  jug- 
gling of  these  mysteries,  weighed  carefully 
in  the  mind,  may  excite  the  question:  if 
Picasso  were  to  do  another  "woman"  would 
he  put  in  all  the  different  touches  and  smudges 
just  as  here  presented,  and  which  are  so  cal- 
culated to  persuade  us  that  each  touch  is 
weighted  with  thought?  If  so,  and  the  symbols 
representing  woman  have  been  thus  standard- 
ized in  his  system,  then  must  we  not  have  them 
always  so,  for  since  no  individual  is  expressed, 
we  take  this  to  be  the  generic  woman.  In  his 
sculpture,  where  he  contends  with  form  in  the 
third  dimension  and  seeks  the  essential  planes, 
his  results  have  a  directness,  a  force,  and  in 
rare  cases  a  beauty  unmanifested  in  his  work 
upon  the  flat.  The  suspicion  therefore  be- 
comes just  as  sincere  as  the  "sincerity"  claimed 

[371 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

by  the  newer  cult  that  much  of  this  evidence  of 
thought  and  care,  the  tapping  here  of  the  char- 
coal, the  firmer  drawing  there,  the  multiplica- 
tion of  edges  and  the  attempt  of  exquisite 
shading  is  but  a  combination  of  digital  flourishes 
executed  over  what  is  of  the  real  importance, 
dust  blown  in  the  eyes  as  a  last  ceremony  of 
mystery  over  what,  to  the  mind  of  this  particu- 
lar painter  at  least  no  one  need  deny,  has  a 
meaning.  It  is  no  part  of  criticism  to  challenge 
what  a  man  does,  but  there  are  two  points  in 
criticism  which  every  work  submits  itself  to :  the 
first,  is  the  effort  sincere,  the  second,  is  the  ex- 
pression adequate  for  the  intention. 

Admitting  that  one  can  be  truly  sincere 
in  this  belief  such  a  one  would  be  found  only 
once  in  a  generation,  and  takes  his  place  among 
the  "great  solitaries."  How  absurd  it  would 
have  been  to  see  a  group  of  little  people  perched 
upon  pillars  surrounding  Simon  Stilites,  or  to 
suppose  that  their  purpose  could  be  anything 
more  than  to  secure  some  of  the  echoed  glory 
through  imitation. 

A  second  reason  for  believing  that  the  new 
movement  will  never  become  general  is  the 
natural  character  of  the  public.  The  public 
(and  art  has  always  been  dependent  upon  the 
public  in  its  natural  preferences,  will  in  time 
fall  back  upon  the  legitimate  aesthetic  craving 
for  the  thing  beautiful. 

It  may  recognize  the  claims  of  the  spirit,  it 
may  indeed  take  on  a  conviction  that  material- 
ism is  not  reality,  that  the  hidden  things 
are  the  most  worthy  and  that  the  suggestion 

[38] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

is  worth  more  than  the  visible  and  tangible 
mark,  but  the  public  has  always  been  grossly 
material,  at  least  sufficiently  to  demand  the 
goods  for  the  money.  The  idealism  of  Berkeley 
is  not  a  popular  philosophy,  and  to  many  an 
absent  treatment  is  not  effective  and  convinc- 
ing. The  public,  in  short,  will  have  realities, 
the  public  will  foster  traditions,  the  public 
retains  that  same  childlike  intuitive  sense,  so 
lauded  by  the  new  movement,  that  will  make 
it  cling  to  what  successive  ages  by  agreement 
have  pronounced  both  good  and  great.  If  art 
is  to  change  it  will  never  be  by  revolution  of 
the  summersault,  but  by  reason  of  a  sane  ten- 
dency through  evolution.  The  subversive  thing 
may  gain  a  place  side  by  side  with  the  art  of 
the  ages  and  will  appeal  to  its  own  type  of 
mind.  The  man  who  likes  that  sort  of  a  thing 
will  be  happy  in  finding  it  just  that  sort  of  a 
thing  which  his  sort  of  man  will  like;  and  again, 
there  will  doubtless  be  found  those  who,  still 
satisfied  by  traditional  art,  may  yet  broadly 
open  their  hearts  to  results  which  are  dis- 
covered in  these  attempts  to  speak  through  the 
spirit  of  art,  and  who  are  frankly  able  to  see  the 
good  in  varied  approaches  to  the  great  source 
thereof. 

Such  a  movement  gaining  momentum  with  a 
rapidity  never  before  equalled  and  having  as  its 
allies  both  the  newer  music  and  the  newer 
literature  will  by  very  force  of  numbers  impel 
its  invasion  and  command  its  territory. 

The  literature  and  music  of  this  movement 
lags  in  no  whit  behind  its  painting  and  sculpture. 

[39] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

The  Salon  dy  Automne  likewise  throws  its  mantle 
over  these. 

VI 

In  Picasso  and  his  principles  it  would  seem 
the  ne  plus  ultra  had  been  reached,  for  in  his 
case  it  is  not  with  the  matter  but  with  the 
manner  that  he  is  completely  engrossed. 
Herein  therefore  his  contemplation  is  entirely 
that  of  an  artist.  It  is  the  artist's  labor  to 
extract  the  essence  from  his  subject  and  reveal 
what  he  finds  it  to  be.  Herein  also  lies  the 
range  of  art  opening  to  different  individuals. 

To  one  the  subject  is  expressed  through 
externals,  to  another  through  a  suggestion  of  the 
subject's  characteristics,  to  another  through  the 
spiritual  element  clearly  controlling  the  physical, 
to  Picasso  through  an  abstract  sensation  which 
in  his  peculiar  mental  workshop  is  turned  out 
through  geometric  figures,  and  to  his  mind  these 
concatenation  of  cubes,  triangles,  and  parallel- 
ograms are  expressive  of  the  essential  character- 
istics of  his  subject.  Whether  a  committee  of 
alienists  would  report  with  a  clean  bill  of  health 
is  not  so  much  the  question  as  to  know  whether 
his  mind  can  find  anywhere  in  the  world  its 
affinity,  any  who  can  honestly  follow  this  lead 
and  arrive  at  his  conclusions.  To  all  such,  his 
work  should  be  a  pleasure,  for  almost  every 
point  in  his  creed  is  a  perfectly  logical  one. 

When  we  look  into  his  perspective,  however, 
we  find  it  can  have  no  place  in  any  logical 
scheme.  He  justifies  this  act  of  representing 
the  child  as  smaller  than  the  adult,  no  matter 

[40] 


IMPRESSION  —  Meeter  de  Zorn  HEAD  —  Fiebig 


LA  CREOLE  AU  PERROQUETTE  UNE  TYPE  —  Kalus 

Alerodack-Jeaneau 

VARIED  EXAMPLES  OF  POST  IMPRESSIONISM 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  AET 

where  placed  in  perspective,  by  the  assertion 
that  form  has  intrinsic  but  not  relative  value 
with  regard  to  other  forms.  The  child  in  the 
foreground  is  therefore  always  smaller  than 
the  parent  one,  two,  or  three  hundred  yards 
away.  Very  good,  if  you  insist;  but  what  shall 
be  done  in  the  case  of  objects  of  like  size  as  to 
foreground  and  background?  Why,  if  a  visual 
art  is  to  become  the  base  for  psychological  ex- 
pression should  it  fail  us  in  respect  of  vision. 
One  should  not  fall  out  with  his  terms,  having 
assumed  them,  and  this  conflict  with  natural  fact 
with  respect  to  him  who  defies  nature  leaves 
such  a  one  in  the  position  of  Canute,  inside 
the  surf  line. 

As  to  colour,  the  same  assertion  denies  to  it 
any  existence.  What  is  of  much  greater  appeal 
to  Picasso  is  vibration  of  light,  which  to  his 
mind  is  more  productive  of  sensation. 

His  art  is  therefore  an  appeal  to  the  psy- 
chology by  man  by  means  of  his  own  particular 
code  of  signs  and  symbols.  Conceiving  form  as  a 
matter  of  surfaces  he  creates  these  by  a  series 
of  equivalents.  ./Esthetics  being  entirely  dis- 
missed and  the  address  made  wholly  to  the 
psychological  faculty,  one  might  properly  ask 
why,  with  a  code  established  and  understood,  it 
would  not  be  as  well  to  simplify  still  further, 
and  have  x  represent  a  head  and  y  a  hand,  and 
m  the  feet,  a,  b,  and  c  respectively  land,  water, 
sky,  etc.  There  being  no  relativity  in  art  it 
would  not  matter  how  these  signs  were  thrown 
together.  To  the  knowing  it  could  soon  be 
understood  whether  the  artist  wished  to  call 

[41] 


.NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

up  an  impression  of  a  young  lady  taking  a  walk 
with  her  dog  or  a  peasant  returning  home  in  his 
cart,  a  man  and  his  wife  sitting  by  the  fire  or 
lovers  walking  by  the  shore.  This  would 
frankly  place  us  back  in  the  era  of  sign  language, 
which,  if  approved  by  the  majority,  would  be  a 
proof  to  the  majority  that  progress  out  of  that 
condition  had  been  a  mistake,  and  degeneration 
the  path  of  true  wisdom. 

VII 

The  impressions  made  of  New  York  by  M. 
Francois  Picabia  to  the  order  of  the  New  York 
Tribune  brings  this  theory  to  a  focus  and  has 
enabled  one  to  include  its  rating  in  the  intense 
question:  Does  this  art  appeal  to  me? 

The  subjects  decided  upon  were  Skyscrapers, 
Peacock  Alley,  and  Fifth  Avenue  at  Thirty- 
fourth  Street. 

The  results  lacked  even  the  remotist  objective 
significance,  and  it  is  possible  in  a  few  years, 
when  the  New  York  experience  is  forgotten, 
the  author  of  them  may  find  himself  in  the 
case  of  Browning  when  confronted  with  some 
of  his  own  lines.  To  know  which  is  which  may 
embarrass  this  exponent  of  Cubism. 

But,  it  is  explained  by  M.  Picabia,  that  his 
result  was  a  picture  of  his  own  mental  mood, 
created  upon  approaching  these  subjects.  Yet 
as  one  gazes  upon  the  picture  of  the  mental 
mood  of  this  man,  intelligible  to  himself  alone 
and  impossible  to  any  other  one  in  the  world, 
he  rightly  demands,  "of  what  concern  is  his 

[421 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

mood  to  me,  especially  if  he  cannot  communi- 
cate it!"  "Art  is  the  ability  of  man  to  pass 
on  his  emotion  to  another,"  and  if  Tolstoy  had 
attempted  no  other  proposition  than  this,  its 
thorough  proof  by  him  entitles  him  to  a  place 
among  the  art  philosophers.1 

The  amusement  which  the  baby  obtains  in 
making  marks  and  mounds  in  the  sand,  which  he 
tells  us  represent  houses,  roads,  men,  trees,  and 
the  like  is  of  an  interest  to  us  commensurate 
with  our  interest  in  the  child's  imagination.  If 
he  continues  to  create  these  symbols  and  insist 
upon  them  at  seven  or  eight  we  send  him  to 
the  school  for  Feeble  Minded  Children.  If  in 
mature  life  he  insists,  the  Asylum  doors  open. 

Yet  what  injustice.  These  institutions  in- 
clude many  well-educated  individuals  whose 
only  wrong  has  been  that  they  were  symbolists. 
They  make  one  thing  and  insist  that  it  means 
another.  Numbers  of  them  can  doubtless 
bring  proof  from  Socrates  through  Plato  that 
they  are  right  in  their  point  of  view.  The  only 
reason  for  their  detention  is  that,  in  their 
insistence  upon  these  things,  their  relatives 
become  bored  —  a  wholly  insufficient  argument 
and  one  which  for  them  must  become  a  mockery, 
if  perchance  the  drawings  alluded  to  and  pub- 
lished by  the  New  York  Tribune  should  come 
to  their  scrutiny. 

Nay,  truly,  art  is  free,  and  should  be,  but 
why  exempt  ?  What  of  these  others  —  aye  what 
of  them? 

J"The  starting  point  of  genius  is  original  discovery:  the  second 
step  is  its  interpretation  to  the  world." — John  C.  Van  Dyck. 

[43] 


CHAPTER  II 

FUTURISM  —  THE  FINAL  DEVELOPMENT 
"They  assume  an  epoch."  —  James  Hunecker. 

To  KEEP  pace  with  the  eager  enthusiasm  of 
developing  artistic  thought  in  these  latter  days 
is  fraught  with  discouragement.  No  sooner 
have  we  made  our  plunge  into  the  thought 
wave  of  one  approaching  sea  than  another  is 
beheld.  To  add  to  the  perplexities  of  the 
tossing  and  many  centred  turbulence,  yet 
another  is  about  to  break  upon  us  which  in  the 
course  of  events  was  destined  for  a  latter  day, 
but  which  in  the  anxiety  and  impatience  of  its 
discoverers  has  been  pushed  forward,  and  is  now 
resounding  upon  the  shore  line  of  art's  farthest 
promontories.  The  name  it  bear  suggests  that 
when  it  has  expanded  upon  the  entire  coast  it 
will  be  here  to  stay.  Indeed,  one  may  find 
scattered  upon  the  sands  the  forewords  of  its 
creed.  We  examine  and  find  its  pronounce- 
ments stated  in  a  clear  and  strident  tone. 

One  reads  and  queries: 

THE  FUTURISTES'  CREED 

1.  "We  contend  that  every  form  of  imitation 
must  be  scorned,  and  that  every  form  of  originality 
must  be  glorified."  At  once  we  wish  to  have  a 

[44] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

definition  for  imitation.  But  proceeding  we 
get  the  notion  that  this  signifies  reality. 

Why  then  do  the  newcomers  make  the  face 
of  a  woman  like  the  face  of  a  woman;  why  not 
like  that  of  a  child,  or  perhaps  a  man?  This 
would  certainly  show  scorn  for  imitation. 
How  much  better  a  caricature  of  a  man  than 
the  Apollo  Belvedere! 

"Every  form  of  originality  must  be  glorified." 
Art  in  the  future  is  to  be  placed  on  the  basis 
of  the  labor  union;  a  reward,  and  what's  more 
a  "glorified"  one,  for  any  kind  of  work. 

2.  "  That  we  must  break  away  from  the  bondage 
of  'harmony*  and  'good  taste/  overlastic  terms 
with  which  one  could  easily  condemn  any  of 
Rembrandt's,  Goya's,  or  Rodin's  works." 

Rembrandt  and  Goya  cannot  reply,  but 
Rodin  might  yet  be  asked  if  he  thought  his 
works  required  the  defence  here  offered  against 
good  taste  and  harmony  which  it  is  implied  they 
violate. 

3.  "  That  art  critics  are  useless,  if  not  harmful. " 
Suppose   they   agreed  with  the  Futuristes' 

creed,  how  then  would  "3"  read?  Critics  are 
"useless"  when  they  fail  to  defend  art,  and 
usually  "harmful"  to  the  enemy  thereof. 

4.  "  That  we  must  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all 
hackneyed  subjects,  and  express  henceforth  the 
whirlwind  life  of  our  day,  dominated  by  steel, 
egotism,  feverish  activity,  and  speed. " 

WTiy  fall  out  with  a  subject?  Originality  is 
more  surely  proved  by  exploiting  an  old  subject 
in  a  new  way  than  by  hunting  up  a  virgin  sub- 
ject. We  cannot  demand  a  new  Bible,  but 

[45] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ABT 

nevertheless  long  for  original  conceptions  from 
the  pulpit,  based  upon  the  old.  Art  has  nothing 
to  do  with  subject;  art  is  expression.  Art  is  uni- 
versal; it  knows  neither  nationality  nor  period, 
neither  yesterday  nor  to-day.  That  art  must 
"illustrate  "a  period  and  that  period  the  present 
is  to  tie  art  up  to  the  fashion  magazine  and  the 
daily  newspaper.  Why,  forsooth,  the  "whirl- 
wind life"  of  to-day,  why  of  steel,  egotism, 
feverishness,  or  speed?  These  promoters  of  a 
new  art  creed  must  have  submitted  drawings  to 
a  yellow  journal  and  had  a  heart  to  heart  talk 
with  the  art  editor.  Art  is  a  few  sizes  larger 
than  this.  It  sometimes  exploits  "repose," 
for  instance. 

5.  "  That  we  must  prize  highly  the  title  of 
'cranks,'  that  gag  applied  by  Philistines  to  the  lips 
of  innovators." 

Words  of  true  policy  if  not  wisdom.  Nothing 
better  to  an  assured  success  than  the  accom- 
paniment of  martyrdom  for  any  new  ism. 

6.  "That  complementary  subjects  and  colors 
are  as  absolutely  necessary  in  painting  as  blank 
verse  is  in  poetry  and  polyphony  in  music. " 

No  one  objects. 

7.  "  That   the   universal   dynamism   must   be 
rendered   through   canvases   producing   dynamic 
sensation. " 

Fine!  Dynamic  sensation  is  just  what  all  art 
wants;  but  what  is  this  brand  of  universal 
dynamism?  Who  makes  it;  who  holds  its 
patent? 

8.  "That  nature  must  be  interpreted  with  a 
sincere  and  virgin  mind." 

[46] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

What,  ho!  The  trouble  up  to  date  was 
supposed  to  be  that  nature  had  been  so  inter- 
preted. 

9.  "  That  motion  and  light  destroy  the  con- 
crete aspect  of  objects. 

Neither  proposition  is  true,  but  if  believed 
to  be  by  the  Futuriste,  the  inevitable  should 
take  place.  He  should  forthwith  withdraw 
from  art  and  try  something  easier. 

The  reverse  of  the  shield  reads  thus : 

"  We  disapprove: 

1.  "Of  the  bituminous  tint  by  which  painters  try 
to  impart  to  modern  canvas  the  patina  of  age. " 

No  one  tries  to  make  a  new  picture  look  like 
an  old  one  except  the  dealer  in  fakes  and  those 
he  employs. 

2.  "Of  the  superficial  and  primitive  archaism 
which  uses    absolute  colors    and  which    in  its 
imitation    of   the   Egyptian's    linear   drawings 
reduces  painting  to  a  childish  and  ridiculous 
synthesis. " 

Besides  its  fling  at  Post  Impressionism,  this  is 
an  honest  attempt  perhaps  at  falling  in  with 
No.  8  of  the  "creed";  seeing  Nature  with  a  sin- 
cere and  virgin  mind. 

3.  (fOfthe  progressive  pretence  of  the  'Session- 
ists'    and   'Independents'   who   have   intrenched 
themselves  behind  academic  rules  as  platitudinous 
and  conservative  as  those  of  the  old  academies." 

The  "  Sessionists  "  and  "  Independents  "  have 
been  going  just  a  trifle  longer  than  the 
latest  development  of  originality  —  long  enough 
to  have  learned  that  the  pricks  they  kicked 
against  were  not  broken  by  the  contact  but 

[47] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

kept  on  remaining  the  foreguard  to  the 
chariot.  Art,  like  everything  else  which  is 
evolved,  has  laws  of  being  —  everything  else 
save  anarchy. 

4.  "Of  the  nude  in  painting,  as  nauseating  and 
cloying  as  adultery  in  fiction." 

Too  much  of  any  good  thing  seems  good  for 
nothing.  The  bad  taste  in  the  mouth  the  day 
after  proves  the  man  a  glutton,  not  that  the 
meat,  wine,  and  cigars  were  not  good. 

At  long  intervals  it  becomes  possible  in  the 
average  of  chances  for  a  small  boy  to  push  his 
face  into  a  group  of  older  boys  and  after  calling 
them  all  fools  and  liars  obtain  immunity 
through  the  admirable  nerve  and  bravado  of 
the  undertaking.  It  is  in  some  such  spirit  as 
this  that  we  loosen  up  the  circle  and  let  the  new 
one  in.  He  is  at  least  amusing,  he  is  intense, 
he  is  self-confident,  but  is  too  immature  to  know 
whether  he  believes  in  himself  or  not;  yet 
we  stretch  a  point  and  for  the  moment  strive  to 
believe  with  him  that  he  does.  There  are 
several  reasons  why  he  should  be  humored,  and 
the  cat  too,  in  her  solicitous  care  for  the  mouse 
which  she  would  keep  alive,  suggests  still 
another. 

Though  his  creed  does  not  make  good  litera- 
ture it  is  rather  through  the  lack  of  education 
and  general  mental  poise  and  literary  endow- 
ment that  it  stands  forth  as  a  bundle  of  mental 
fallacies,  or  platitudes,  than  that  the  real  inten- 
tion of  the  spirit  behind  the  creed  is  shallow. 
Indeed,  the  performance  is  in  quite  a  different 

[48] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

class.  This  at  least  awakens  an  interest  not 
founded  on  humor,  and  we  quickly  resolve, 
on  approaching  some  products  of  the  creed  of 
the  Futurist  that  we  would  rather  see  than 
read  him. 

The  arrival  at  this  is  in  the  course  of  most 
natural  procedure,  and  on  second  thought  no 
one  need  be  surprised  at  the  bombshell  nor 
give  more  than  ordinary  credit  for  any  original- 
ity in  its  device. 

We  have  come  to  this  simply  because  we  are 
at  the  end  of  the  road  and  there  was  no  other 
turn.  To  the  makers  of  new  sensations,  an 
occupation  with  which  the  stimulated  brain 
of  the  Romance  nations  is  ever  amusing  itself, 
the  putting  of  two  pictures  onto  one  canvas 
was,  all  things  considered,  not  a  very  original 
diversion.  Photography  has  been  exploiting 
it  for  some  time,  and  were  the  American  genius 
out  for  this  sort  of  sensation  it  would  have  ap- 
pealed long  since  to  the  keen  Yankee  mind. 
The  fact  is  the  Yankee  does  not  yet  feel  that 
he  has  reached  the  end  of  his  road,  and,  more- 
over, a  large  part  of  his  sagacity  lies  in  keeping 
this  open.  The  fact  that  in  literature,  painting, 
music,  and  sculpture  American  and  English  art 
has  been  practically  uninfluenced  by  "Primit- 
ivolatry"  and  "  Savageopathy "  is  evidence 
that  these  nations  are  ascending  instead  of 
descending.  Our  ambition  is  beyond,  in  this 
same  direction  —  we  have  not  yet  reached  our 
perihelion  but  are  persisting  in  our  orbit,  as  yet 
dissatisfied  with  accomplishment  of  what  is  at 
hand  and  reaching  toward  the  fuller  illumina- 

[49J 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

tion  of  it,  which  we  know  must  lie  beyond. 
To  us  therefore  neither  Post  Impressionism 
nor  Futurism  appeals  as  a  necessity  but  rather 
as  a  point  of  view  which  we  may  indulge  and 
even  patronize  in  very  much  the  spirit  of  the 
Romans  of  the  Colosseum.  Nor  would  it  be 
either  true  or  gracious  to  deny  that  the  game 
gives  us  genuine  pleasure,  mingled  it  is  true 
with  the  grip  of  tension,  despair,  and  distrust, 
yet  beheld  by  all  of  open  mind  as  having  some- 
where at  its  base  a  reason  which  is  sufficient 
for  its  creation. 

II 

To  my  own  mind  the  Futuristes  are  de- 
cidedly more  inspiring  than  the  Post  and  Neo- 
Impressionists,  and  pictures  by  them  would 
doubtless  prove  an  endless  source  upon  which 
to  practise  the  fascinating  ingenuities  of  the 
imagination. 

Their  attempt  in  brief  is  to  present  successive 
events  as  simultaneous.  A  street  scene  is  not 
such  as  may  be  made  with  an  instantaneous 
exposure  in  photography  but  rather  by  uncap- 
ping the  lens  at  intervals  to  receive  super- 
imposed impressions.  We  may  see  the  same 
character  several  times  in  the  same  picture: 
coming  down  the  street,  ascending  the  stairs, 
and  entering  the  room. 

The  qualities  arising  out  of  suggestion,  intima- 
tion, and  inference,  which  are  so  subtly  applied 
in  literature,  sculpture  and  painting,  are  in  this 
art  of  the  future  substituted  for  actualities. 
These,  besides  interfering  with  the  main  pro  - 

[50] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

ject,  fail  to  align  themselves  in  the  natural 
course  of  sequence  and  in  the  scheme  of  events 
are  as  likely  to  be  taken  upside  down  as  right 
side  up,  hind  side  fore  as  in  the  rational  course 
of  events,  and  though  it  is  possible  to  select 
from  the  mass  of  material  dumped  at  our  feet 
such  as  may  be  constructed  into  logical  infer- 
ences, it  must  be  remembered  that  there  is  but 
a  certain  proportion  of  the  race  that  is  able  to 
entertain  and  comment  upon  two  or  more  ideas 
presented  at  the  same  time. 

Up  to  this  point  in  history  the  boundaries 
of  the  fine  arts  have  been  as  fixed  as  those  of 
the  United  States  or  the  coast  line  of  England. 
If  there  ever  had  existed  any  doubt  concerning 
the,  territory  claimed  by  painting  and  literature, 
Lessing's  "Laocoon"  sought  to  establish  them. 
In  this  exhaustive  comparison  between  the 
capacities  of  poetry  and  painting  it  is  proved 
that  poetry  deals  with  successive  impressions, 
and  painting  with  simultaneous  impressions. 
This  limitation  of  painting  necessitates,  there- 
fore, such  selection  as  will  make  the  most  of 
a  limited  opportunity.  Painting  must  deter- 
mine the  "fertile  moment,"  and  must  so  order 
her  resources  that  the  greatest  possible  sensation 
may  result  from  her  material. 

The  Futuristes  have  now  invaded  the  realm 
of  successive  impression  thus  far  conceded  to 
literature.  And  why,  shall  we  not  ask,  may 
not  this  be  done?  If  painting  is  able  to 
strengthen  the  sensation  for  which  her  forms 
exist  there  is  no  understanding  with  literature 
forbidding  her  attempt.  There  is  no  proof  of 

[51] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

authority  to  Lessing,  Winkelmann,  or  Goethe 
for  fixing  the  capacity  of  graphic  activity. 
Let  Pragmatism  here  have  its  chance.  That 
thing  is  good  which  proves  iself ,  and  there  are 
certain  subjects  open  to  art  wherein  more  of 
their  character  may  be  evoked  by  such  means 
than  by  the  simultaneous  method;  in  all  sub- 
jects of  naturally  chaotic  character,  such  as 
battles,  street  scenes,  interiors  where  the  com- 
pany is  constantly  moving,  subjects  of  the  dance, 
games,  the  action  of  horses,  etc.  In  all  such  cases 
the  new  movement  may  be  able  to  supply  as  true 
if  not  a  truer  sensation  of  reality  than  by  our 
conventional  means.  To  rightly  cajole  the 
visual  sense,  coaxing  it  from  rebellion,  is  no 
easy  task,  but  demands  an  ability  to  draw 
and  to  paint  such  as  will  put  this  art  technically 
to  the  strictest  test,  and  call  for  highly  trained 
performances.  Herein  will  come  a  blessed 
relief  from  the  shallow  prosecutions  of  crude 
color  and  cruder  draughtsmanship  of  the  imi- 
tators of  Matisse. 

The  assertion,  however,  that  this  is  to 
become  the  art  of  the  future  is  on  a  par  with 
declaring  that  in  the  future  the  only  drink  for 
mankind  will  be  a  certain  brand  of  champagne, 
or  other  wine  warranted  to  make  men  see 
double. 

The  liberal  acceptance  during  the  past  decade 
of  the  many  isms  which  art  has  proposed  should 
be  proof  to  all  new  cults  that  no  one  can 
dominate  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others,  but 
that  each  must  prove  its  right  to  live  before 
the  tribunal  of  a  universal  intelligence. 

[52] 


§ 
p 

u 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

III 

The  artist  has  always  held  the  mirror  up  to 
nature;  the  difference  in  the  art  of  the  world 
has  been  a  difference  in  mirrors,  nature  serving 
each  with  her  unchangeable  pose.  In  Greek 
art  she  was  reflected  from  the  perfectly  polished 
silver  surface  of  the  classic  disc  which  was  placed 
before  her,  and  the  response  she  made  was 
flawless.  We  are  absorbed  by  the  creation  and 
are  not  reminded  of  the  creator,  save  in  our 
afterthought.  The  perfect  mirror  never  re- 
minds us  of  itself.1 

But  after  the  Greeks,  other  painters  have  also 
polished  mirrors,  though  not  as  well,  and  so  we 
have  been  conscious  of  the  surface,  and  finding 
the  surface  have  recalled  the  artificer.  But 
therein  we  have  discovered  a  double  interest, 
we  have  thought  of  the  man  with  the  mirror, 
pounding  out  his  surface,  putting  himself  into 
its  fibre  and  polishing  it  to  his  notion  of  fitness. 
We  have  at  first  perhaps  been  irritated  by  the 
unevennesses.  When  we  looked  for  perfection 
we  have  found  but  analogies;  what  we  thought 
was  a  counterfeit  of  reality  was  but  a  suggestion 

*We  might  marvel  now,  as  no  doubt  our  fathers  did,  at  the 
inventor  of  the  camera  when  first  reviewing  its  results;  but  science 
we  quickly  take  for  granted  as  a  record  in  the  discovery  of  things 
which  have  always  existed.  We  do  not  stop  to-day  to  think  of 
De  Guerre  and  thank  him  for  the  kodak  picture,  or  Lumiere  when 
enjoying  the  color  print  of  figure  or  landscape.  Phidias  and 
Scopas  we  honor  because  their  names  are  attached  to  a  few  specific 
things;  and  Zeuxis  and  Apelles  we  hold  in  honor  by  a  reputation 
for  the  flawless  reflection  known  to  us  through  the  comments  of 
their  contemporaries.  It  is  not  likely  that  any  of  them  painted 
any  better  than  Mr.  B.,  the  still  life  painter,  or  M.  Bouguereau, 
both  of  whom  the  world  is  now  cruelly  trying  to  forget. 

[53] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

of  it.  Some  mirrors  were  so  rudely  fashioned 
as  to  be  no  better  than  the  reflection,  refracted 
and  broken,  of  troubled  water,  the  facets  so 
sharply  bent  as  to  act  like  prisms,  flashing  the 
rainbow  colors.  Again  the  mirror  has  been 
hammered  out  in  large  planes  so  that  the  im- 
age comes  to  us  in  cubes,  parallelopipedons, 
triangles,  bent,  twisted  and  contorted.  We 
scowl  at  such  a  one,  dividing  nature  into  elemen- 
tal fragments.  We  think  hard  thoughts  of  him, 
willing  to  inflict  us  with  his  careless  craftsman- 
ship. We  exclaim,  "What  childish  effort 
at  mirror  making!"  And  when  he  declares  he 
could  make  a  better  one  but  does  not  want  to, 
we  jeer  the  more  and  question  his  motives,  his 
ability,  and  even  his  sanity. 

Finally,  we  find  the  mirror  has  been  etched 
upon,  it  bears  suggestions  here  and  there 
which  we  cannot  but  see  while  absorbed  with 
the  mirror's  reflection.  Instead  of  a  singled 
thought,  two,  three  or  more  are  suggested. 
It  seems  as  though  the  mirror  had  been  quite 
defaced,  but  as  we  withdraw  and  go  our  way 
the  impression  we  carry  with  us  is  the  impres- 
sion of  reality. 


54] 


CHAPTER  III 

CONCLUSION 

"Life  is  short,  art  long,  opportunity  fleeting,  experiment 
slippery,  judgment  difficult."  —  Epictetus. 

JUDGMENT  of  art  is  difficult  in  that  ratio 
which  measures  not  alone  our  ignorance  but 
our  lack  of  sympathy  and  our  lack  of  proportion. 
Were  the  subject  in  hand  a  science,  the  study 
of  that  science  would  in  time  render  us  expert, 
but  no  amount  of  knowledge  of  the  fine  arts 
ever  made  one  a  competent  critic  of  art  any 
more  than  a  knowledge  of  the  world's  religions 
would  enable  one  to  apprehend  the  essence  of 
religion.  In  both  art  and  religion  the  discern- 
ment of  the  spirit  is  what  counts;  and  the  spirit 
must  be  spiritually  discerned.  It  is  for  lack 
of  this  that  we  are  constantly  applying  the 
wrong  formulas.  We  use  our  own  creed  to  meas- 
ure the  other  man's. 

The  new  dogma  is  supposedly  vicious  because 
it  seems  to  upset  our  own.  Both  artists  and 
critics  rush  to  the  rescue  of  what  they  think  is 
right  by  fighting  what  they  imagine  is  wrong; 
frequently  without  investigation  and  on  the 
general  premise  that  man  is  as  capable  of  folly 
as  of  wisdom.  To  save  tradition  has  been  the 
first  and  last  reason  for  the  greatest  conflicts 
of  the  ages. 

[551 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

Tradition  never  needed  saving:  it  somehow 
has  a  way  of  looking  out  for  itself,  and  if  it  has 
not  the  seeds  of  perennial  generation  it  had 
better  die.  The  greatest  fools  of  history  are 
those  who  have  not  believed  this;  those  who 
have  assumed  that  the  way  of  their  present 
was  right,  and  resented  interference. 

To-day  Art  is  in  the  whirlpool;  the  tumult  of 
the  waters  are  about  her.  She  has  no  sooner 
escaped  the  Charybdian  suction  than  she  is 
threatened  by  the  more  awful  fate  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Cratsesis.  Many  are  the  shouts  of 
caution,  awful  the  moments  of  suspense;  but 
ye  in  charge  of  Art's  true  destiny  spare  the  gag 
law  at  least.  Again  history  stands  ready  to 
prove  that  this  has  always  meant  galvanic 
batteries  and  blood  transfusion  to  the  oppressed. 
The  cause  that  is  not  proven  by  martyrdom 
lacks  the  best  species  of  advertisement. 

This  the  opposition  is  insisting  to  supply. 
Instead,  a  better  policy  would  be  to  play  out 
the  tether  cheerfully  and  grant  all  possible  rope 
for  the  hanging.  This  would  be  both  sports- 
manlike —  and  sagacious. 

The  craft  of  art  weathered  the  Impressionistic 
squall  a  generation  ago,  and  the  drenching  she 
received  only  stiffened  her  sails  so  that  to-day 
she  rides  better  than  ever. 

Post  Impressionism  is  but  a  relapse  which 
when  spent  will  doubtless  give  Art  the  regular 
"added  lease  of  life,"  passing  forth  as  she  is 
bound  to  from  the  fever  of  the  present.  Through 
anxiety  that  the  currents  which  now  are  divid- 
ing will  not  eventually  merge,  the  presumption 

[56] 


FUNERAL  OF  THE  ANARCHIST,  GALLI  —  Carra 


THE  REVOLT  —  Rossolo 
FUTURISM 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

obtains  that  Art  may  be  two  things  and  not 
one,  that  the  definition  must  be  changed  to 
accommodate  a  changed  significance.  Art  fre- 
quently has  been  wrongly  interpreted  both  at 
the  hands  of  philosophers  and  artists,  and  set 
to  performing  feats  which  by  her  nature  were 
impossible. 

While  being  the  cause  for  the  total  confusion 
of  many  a  one,  the  newer  creed  of  Post  Impres- 
sionism need  only  be  found  to  apply  to  Post 
Impressionism  instead  of  to  Art  in  general,  and 
there  will  be  no  more  reason  for  fighting  her 
than  for  a  Baptist  to  wage  war  upon  a  Meth- 
odist. 

What  says  the  creed  of  these  two  distinctive 
arts?  In  brief,  one  wishes  to  create  a  mental 
mood  under  the  spell  of  which  the  mind  may  be 
stimulated  to  a  new  creating;  the  other  offers 
the  compass  of  that  stimulation  and  assumes 
responsibility  for  its  dimensions,  which  may  be 
measured. 

Is  there  anything  incongruous  in  the  same 
mind  accepting  these  two  separate  kinds  of 
stimulation!  Because  the  barbaric  color  and 
crude  forms  of  Matisse  stir  the  somnolent 
primitive  microbe  which  still  lingers  with  some 
of  us,  must  he  therefore  straightway  cast  out 
Alma  Tadema  or  John  Sargent  who  substitute 
the  visual  for  the  mental  picture.  Should  a 
man  be  accused  of  treachery  who  would  keep 
an  example  of  each  sort  of  art  under  one  roof  — 
duly  provided  with  separate  chambers? 

If  there  be  conflict,  the  cause  is  the  old  story, 
the  story  of  "one  way." 

[57] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

Coventry  Patmore  longs  for  the  formation 
of  what  he  calls  "Institutes  of  Art  which 
would  supersede  and  extinguish  nearly  all  the 
desultory  chatter  which  now  passes  for  criti- 
cism, and  which  would  go  far  to  form  a  true 
and  abiding  popular  taste. " 

This  would  be  all  very  well,  compiled,  as  he 
suggests,  "from  the  writings  of  Aristotle, 
Goethe,  Hegel,  and  others"  who  have  crystal- 
lized in  words  the  practice  of  artists.  As  these 
principles,  however,  have  invariably  followed 
Art's  expressions  rather  than  preceded  it  and 
are  necessarily  the  discoverable  essence  of  its 
life,  it  would  fall  out  that  a  brand  new  sort  of 
art  would  demand  at  least  one  or  two  new 
principles.  Some  of  the  old  would  stand,  it  is 
true,  in  any  change,  but  nothing  of  the  hard 
and  fast  sort  can  bind  art,  which  is  broadly  an 
expression  of  that  power  in  man  which  is 
regulative  of  the  quality  of  all  that  he  creates, 
his  aesthetic  and  intellectual  pleasure.  What 
these  pleasures  may  be  in  one  age  and  another 
are  controvertible;  but  Art's  business  is  wholly 
to  see  to  the  quality  of  that  which  is  created  for 
this  pleasure. 

With  this  gauge  we  may  not  only  estimate 
Art  but  the  age  as  well.  We  may  justly  con- 
clude that  the  art  of  the  dark  ages  was  sufficient 
to  give  pleasure  to  the  beclouded  intelligence 
of  that  age  and  with  the  same  process  of  reason- 
ing, without  recourse  to  its  philosophy  or 
poetry,  may  get  in  touch  with  the  keener  civili- 
zation which  prevailed  in  the  Greece  of  Pericles. 
The  intellectual  calmness  of  Egypt,  the  spiritual 

[58] 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

contemplation  of  the  Orient  betokened  that 
trend  of  intellectual  reach,  together  with  its 
limitations,  the  pleasure  in  which  has  been 
proclaimed  in  their  art.  As  a  man  thinketh 
so  is  he;  and  so  we  may  apprehend  the  intellec- 
tual joy  of  both  the  painters  and  beholders  of 
the  early  religious  art,  regarding  the  altar 
pieces  which,  through  a  fervent  realism,  strove 
to  express  the  spirituality  of  their  ideal.  With 
most  of  them  the  spirit  was  the  directing  force. 
No  one  can  gaze  on  the  early  art  of  the  Renais- 
sance, from  Giotto  to  Fra  Angelico  and  Fra 
Bartolomeo  and  not  be  arrested  and  held  in 
thrall  by  that  sanctified  intellectual  approach 
which  gave  them  birth. 

This  same  criterion  must  absolutely  apply 
to-day.  Our  civilization  is  many  sizes  larger 
than  aforetime.  It  is  inventive  and  furtively 
seeks  new  modes  with  incessant  unrest.  Art 
should  be  lenient,  ready,  and  even  anxious  to 
put  her  arm  about  the  shoulders  of  any  new 
creed  which  can  prove  its  case,  and  with  the 
adoption  remind  it  that  the  newcomer  is  but 
one  of  many  of  an  endless  chain  and  in  no  wise 
can  take  the  place  of  any  other. 

"Before  my  tale  of  days  is  told, 
O  may  I  watch,  on  reverent  knees, 

The  'Unknown  Beauty'  once  unfold 
The  magic  of  her  mysteries! 


"New  arts,  new  raptures,  new  desires 
Will  stir  the  new-born  souls  of  men; 

New  fingers  smite  new-fashioned  lyres  — 
And  O,  may  I  be  listening  then. 

[591 


NEW  TENDENCY  IN  ART 

"  Shall  I  reject  the  green  and  rose 

Of  opals  with  their  shifting  flame, 
Because  the  classic  diamond  glows 

With  lustre  that  is  still  the  same? 

"  Change  is  the  pulse  of  life  on  earth; 

The  artist  dies,  but  Art  lives  on. 
New  rhapsodies  are  ripe  for  birth 

When  every  rhapsodist  seems  gone. 

"  So  to  my  day's  extremity, 

May  I  in  patience  infinite 
Attend  the  beauty  that  must  be 

And,  though  it  slay  me,  welcome  it." 
—  Edmond  Gosse,  closing  his  last  book  of  poems. 


THE  END 


[60] 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 

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